L.A. government struggling with new inventory system

Computerworld - The Los Angeles Police Department would have had to write a lot of tickets to break even after it got a $750,000 invoice for new citation books that should have cost just $7,500. The culprit: incorrect data entered into a new procurement and inventory-management system that Los Angeles' city government began using in January.

And the Police Department isn't the only agency that's having problems with the $11 million system, which is based on PeopleSoft Inc.'s enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. City officials this week confirmed that multiple departments have voiced complaints about inadequate end-user training and help desk support, resulting in billing problems, late payments to suppliers and inventory shortages.

"The [system] was meant to speed things up and save money," said Laura Chick, a member of the Los Angeles City Council and the incoming city controller. "So far, we are not reaching all the goals we have set. There's a laundry list of problems." Chick and other city officials noted that training, or a lack thereof, is the major cause of the problems.

The city is using PeopleSoft's procurement, inventory-management and accounts payable modules. The applications have "bugs like every software package, but we've [reported] them to PeopleSoft, and they've been good at turning them around," said Bob Jensen, assistant general manager of the city's General Services Department.

Jensen, who's overseeing the project for the city, wrote in a report dated May 9 that problems with PeopleSoft's inventory module "have resulted in inaccurate shelf counts" of some supplies. Manual processes for doing the counts have since been implemented, he said, adding that other bugs related to receiving and inventory-replenishment procedures were mostly resolved earlier this month.

But Jensen said this week that the software bugs aren't to blame for most of the start-up pains being felt with the new system. "The procurement problems have to do with people problems," he said. In one case, Jensen noted, employees unfamiliar with the system populated PeopleSoft tables with inaccurate data, causing glitches.

According to a memo issued last Friday by the city's Office of Administrative and Research Services, many departments indicated in detailed reports "that additional training on the new system needs to be provided" to their workers. Jensen said extensive training programs are already offered on an ongoing basis, but he added that more training is planned.

The design of the new system and many of the employees who are using it have changed since the initial training was done, Chick said. In addition, she said, some departments don't have