After implementing SAP software and going through a euro changeover, Midland Health Board decided to streamline their SAP implementation by upgrading to SAP R/3 4.6C. The tight schedule meant a highly organized project team was absolutely essential.

The Midland Health Board in the heart of Ireland services four counties and provides healthcare for 205,000 people. To ensure high-quality services to this number of people requires a large staff. Together, this creates a mountain of data that needs to be administered and updated quickly and efficiently.

Prior to choosing SAP software at the beginning of 1999, Midland Health Board had been running a very piecemeal type of system environment with many small systems and a lot of duplicated data, as Sarah McCormack, SAP Program Manager at the Midland Health Board, describes her organizations reasons for choosing SAP software. When managers wanted to produce a report to determine cost or turnover or analyze a vendor, they would have to do a lot of exports, download them to Microsoft Excel, and then try to compile the information they needed, McCormack recalls.

To help with the implementation, Midland chose IBM Ireland after looking at several European firms as their strategice Implementation partner. They also are working with KPMG as a training partner. A crucial factor in the success of the project was that, right from the start, they also set up an SAP project team in the Midland Health Board, which according to McCormack has really becoming an SAP core competency center.

The implementation of SAP FI 4.0B in October 1999 covered the components Financials (FI), Controlling (CO), Materials Management (MM), and Plant Maintenance (PM). They use SAP Financials for all their cost center management, financial, and management accounting, and MM for all their purchasing requirements. SAP HR 4.6C was implemented in October 2000 with the components Personnel Administration (PA), Organizational Management, basic pay, Training & Events, and Absences.. With both solutions in place, Midland has access to real-time online fully integrated information.

With the implementation of SAP HR, however, they had two different environments for the users to work in. And that brought its own difficulties because we ended up having different training environments, different training materials, and different support sites, McCormack describes: Calls coming through to the help desk had to first be routed to the appropriate agent depending on the release of the software. They ultimately decided that they needed to upgrade SAP Financials to 4.6C to not only smooth out the support issues, but also give them more access to e-business functionality, including portals and SAP.com. Another impetus for upgrading was that many users found that the 4.6C interface was much more user-friendly than the 4.0B.

But McCormack did have some misgivings about upgrading so soon. They had just gone through two implementations, and then they were hit with all the Y2K issues and then came the euro. I found myself wondering how we would get the upgrade done and done quickly.

Midland Health again turned to IBM Ireland for help with the upgrade. McCormack set up a dedicated Project Team for this upgrade consisting mainly of member of the Midlands SAP core competency centre, To ensure continuity from IBM, Peter Kearney was selected as the Project Manager to co-ordinate their team. This core team with KPMG providing training support took on the challenge. The SAP Ireland office in Dublin was there to support and assist when required. Partnership was important, because if everyone is not on one team, you lose time and the project gets drawn out. So, all parties worked closely decided on a six to eight week plan, and McCormack took the plan to management to get their buy-in. This was crucial, because if they did not buy in to the fact that we were going to be heads down, fully committed to do this in six to eight weeks, then I knew we couldnt succeed.

The approval was granted and she was confident the project would be a success. Midland had just finished their euro project, they had very organized test scripts in place, and their data was in excellent condition. McCormack advises that if the project is not well organized and the data is not clean you will definitely have difficulties in running a successful upgrade. The project team also used the ASAP methods to create their project plan and lay out all the key areas, including resources and timeline.

The upgrade went live on February 19 with minimum downtime at the switchover, which took place over a weekend. McCormack sees several success factors, including their dedicated SAP core competency center and the high level of commitment from the organization and the trust they put in us. Midland Health Board has also focused on providing intensive training for their users, which has significantly reduced the number of calls to the support desk.

A phase two SAP HR project is currently underway with an implementation of Time Management and Irish Payroll slated to go live in 2003 or 2004. They are also evaluating other SAP components, including Fleet Management for their emmergency and non emmergency fleet as well as SAP.com.

With several SAP projects behind her, what would McCormack tell other companies looking to implement or upgrade SAP solutions? You really have to be clear about what you are trying to achieve and you must have the buy-in and commitment from the organization. You also need a very good team effort, a good project management approach and then you can move forward.

MIDLAND HEALTH BOARD

Midland Health Board, one of eight health agencies in the Irish Health Agencies, serves the counties of Laois, Offaly, Longford, and Westmeath in central Ireland with services for improving health and quality of life. These services include acute services, community services, mental health services, intellectual disability services, and a Department of Public Health. With 5,000 employees, which include doctors, nurses, and technicians, they had a budget of 330 million in 2001.

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