The construction group replaced its outdated ERP to harmonise its system landscape, increase internal efficiency and strengthen its project business

System before/after

The core of the system landscape consisted of 3L ERP, Byggsamordnaren (BSO) and AGDA lön with some, albeit limited, integration sets. In addition to these, there were also several incoherent, completely disconnected systems/tools that have been added over the years to fulfil the needs that have arisen. This created a lot of additional work in the form of manual double entry of the same data in several systems and inconsistent data that needed to be cleaned up/corrected. It also did not create good conditions for the project organisations, which then needed to work in several different systems, which created a requirement for manual work to obtain the information required to manage the projects.

Solution

The project began with a feasibility study that involved defining the requirements, identifying and procuring a new ERP that could replace the existing one. There was also a lot of focus on reviewing and optimising the group's operational model and governance model, which became an important input to the selection process to replace the ERP system. The ERP system that was finally selected was Unit4 ERP with Unit4 itself as implementation partner / supplier.

In order to implement Unit4 ERP within the deadline (April-December), clear limits were set for the project scope. The goal was to keep the system within the project, including integrations with other systems, as stripped down as possible, and then in a phase 2 drive the development of the solution. A major advantage for the project was that several of the project members had varying lengths of experience of Unit4 ERP, and in similar types of organisations. This, combined with the fact that the customer's project members had a clear vision of what they wanted the solution to look like and a very strong decision-making process, became important success factors.

The project team worked very focused on the framework that was set up and from the start had a very strong collaboration with Unit4's representatives to lay the foundation for the set-up according to the customer's basic needs and to drive implementation, with all that it entails, to the finish line within the set time.

Result

The project succeeded in delivering a completely new ERP solution on time and within the project budget. The ERP system had significant functionality that the old solution lacked, which resulted in the client being able to decommission several of the old, separate tools, thereby strengthening and creating a more coherent system landscape.

Since the new solution is significantly broader in terms of functionality compared to the previous solution, all data is collected in the same tool. This has enabled the projects to have access to real-time data for everything relevant to the projects, which creates great value in terms of control, monitoring and management of the projects.

Thanks to the systems experience of the client's project team, we managed to maintain an efficiency throughout the project that would not otherwise have been possible. As a result, the project was able to deliver a much more comprehensive and complete solution than the original scope, while keeping the budget and schedule unaffected.

Conclusions

The project successfully delivered a solution that exceeded expectations, despite a very aggressive schedule that was a concern from the start. The new solution has provided the customer with the conditions required to be able to extract certain critical effects in the long term that the previous solution had limited, thereby enabling the fulfilment of the long-term strategic goals set by the group in a more efficient manner.

Worth highlighting are some of the main key factors that made the project successful:

• Previous experience with Unit4 ERP within the customer's project team
• A clear focus on the project framework and objectives
• Working with the supplier - the importance of seeing the supplier as a partner rather than a supplier.
• Decision-making - The client's project owners and representatives had both a clear mandate and the ability to make quick decisions.
• A thorough feasibility study - Much of the success achieved can be attributed to the extensive preparatory work that the customer chose to carry out before the system change, where elements such as future needs, requirements, governance, etc. were established.