CIO Amal Girgis has been involved in Pratt & Whitney Canada's ERPactivities since their inception. When she transferred from the firm'sEngineering organization in 1995 to become Director, InformationTechnology, she found herself looking at ERP software options thefollowing year.

From the beginning, the project had strong roots in the businessgroup. The fervent backers of ERP were former Vice President, Finance,Reginald Steers, and former Vice President, Operations, LouisChênevert, who is now President of the Pratt Group based in Hartford,CT. The business driver for the undertaking was clear - there was aneed for a comprehensive system that would integrate and optimize thecompany's business processes, providing data integrity and dataavailability to everyone.

The decision was made to go with SAP, and the modules selected for the'Big Bang' were financials, cost accounting, production planning,materials management, sales and distribution and quality. Assisting inthe project was implementation partner Deloitte & Touche.

Mapping The Process

According to Girgis, even in the early stages of the project therewere critical hurdles to overcome. One of them was properly mappingthe process.