Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters
For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Supply Chain/ERP
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
More E-Mail Newsletters 
 

Ford kills 'Everest' procurement software system

It pulled the plug on a system built around Oracle's 11i E-Business Suite

August 18, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Despite four years in production and an investment of millions of dollars, Ford Motor Co. is pulling the plug on a major procurement software system built around Oracle Corp.'s 11i E-Business Suite of applications.
Ford spokesman Paul Wood today confirmed news reports from earlier this week that said Ford had decided to unplug its Oracle procurement system, dubbed Everest, and collapse its purchasing processes around its original custom-written, mainframe-based applications.
"We completed an evaluation of all the production and nonproduction procurement systems and made the decision to transition back to the proven, current system," Wood said.
Everest began in 1999 at the height of the dot-com era, when companies were routinely spending millions of dollars on software to automate their supply chains -- with varying results.
According to Wood, Everest was a separate venture from the Web-based automotive exchange Ford helped create, called Covisint. He described Everest as "very ambitious" but offered few details about its implementation.
The Everest applications started to go live in 2000 and continued with a "rolling launch," Wood said.
He declined to say how many suppliers or units the implementation currently supports but noted that the software is widely used in some form throughout Ford. He also declined to say what problems or inefficiencies were in the Oracle system, but sources indicated that Everest was hampered by poor performance.
It's now Ford's intention to migrate any relevant new features from Everest to its legacy system, using in-house development staff. The mainframe procurement software continued to run in coexistence with Everest, and company suppliers have used both sets of applications to handle supply chain transactions.
Wood declined to comment on how long it will take to shift completely back to the legacy applications or how much money Everest will ultimately cost the automaker.
For its part, Oracle issued a terse comment: "Oracle continues to support Ford on its back-to-basics strategic initiatives and IT projects. Given our desire to honor a non-disclosure agreement in effect, it would be inappropriate for Oracle to comment on any specifics."
A spokeswoman declined to offer further explanation.



Additional Resources

POLL RESULTS
Accelerate your knowledge of the IT world you inhabit by viewing the results of a series of polls taken by your IT peers. These polls of 100+ IT professionals each are available for full viewing. They cover key topics such as virtualization, processor performance, green IT, cloud computing and many others. Be a part of the buzz.
WHITE PAPER
Technology is complex. Keeping it running productively shouldn't be. To that end, you want to minimize the number of solutions needed in-house to simplify operations, maintenance, and support. Kodak offers a best-practices model. One company provides support for both scanner and software, for fast problem resolution without vendor finger-pointing. Download now!
WHITE PAPER
Utilizing demand intelligence improves the precision of pricing, product assortments, channel/store placement, and promotion, which are all essential for sustainable revenue management performance. Learn more, download this free whitepaper today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Supply Chain Agenda 2009
Crisis dominates the supply chain agenda in 2009. Which projects will hold out in these difficult times? The study reflects the most important...  

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

Accelerate SSL Encrypted Applications
The amount of SSL traffic is growing in the enterprise. Because it is encrypted, it cannot be properly controlled and accelerated. Blue Coat...  

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

ESG Lab Field Audit
Many companies have successfully implemented Riverbed WAN optimization solutions within their Cisco networks. This ESG Lab Field Audit document explores the success that...  

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....

Shape Your Apps Strategy to Reflect New SaaS Licensing and Pricing Trends
Why are smart companies choosing software-as-a-service? Find out in the complimentary Forrester Research report...  

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

Natural User Interface for Enterprise Applications
Learn how a revolutionary user interface can make a complex enterprise application so intuitive even casual users can jump right in....  

Agile Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for Rapid ROI
Find out how combining ECM and BPM will help adress issues about content rich business processes....