Succession planning is another area currently being handled
by a third-party program, which requires custom interfaces
to facilitate data flows between it and the PeopleSoft implementation. But CSX sometimes experiences data-integrity
problems when information needs to be consolidated between
two systems. The problem: updates to information in the core
PeopleSoft system aren’t immediately reflected in the third-party applications, which rely on nightly batch processes. This
creates a scenario where an executive may receive a succession-planning report that’s been created with old data and the information can’t easily be refreshed until the next day.
The PeopleSoft upgrade is also spurring CSX to evaluate
all of its third-party HR systems
to determine which ones it can
now replace with the new capabilities. “There’s clearly value
in having everything in one
system so you are not having
to go reach out to all these
other systems and get the data,”
says David Carter, director of
client services for CedarCrestone, an IT systems-integration
company with expertise in ERP solutions that works closely
with CSX.
“CSX had the faith in CedarCrestone to tackle this
upgrade project with them, and their faith has been validated,” Carter adds.
Separate systems also challenge reporting and analytical
activities, because each system may format data differently.
In the meantime, analysts must continue to pull the desired
data from PeopleSoft and then manually slice and dice the
information to coax out comparisons of performance data for
particular time periods. CSX management is looking to use
consolidated data records as a base for expanding its analytical capabilities.
Hellstern is meeting with Oracle representatives about
business intelligence technology, including Oracle Human
Resources Analytics, with the goal of eventually creating
dashboards that display much of the information CSX executives need. “This would allow a vice president to drill down
into his or her group to identify trends or to see at a high
level results about the overall workforce,” she says. “Our
overall strategy for analytics is to provide our executive team
with the tools to do more modeling, forward projections,
and what-ifs.”
“We didn’t implement the system
and then spend the next three
months scrambling. . . . We
activities and offered a way for team members to find solutions when unexpected problems threaten to derail progress.
“We wanted our business partners to feel comfortable when
they went in and turned on the new system. We didn’t want
a technology upgrade to wreak havoc on the organization,”
explains Melissa Mucha, assistant controller and a committee
organizer at CSX.
Getting technology and business groups meeting regu-
larly was especially important given the scope of the upgrade
project, which included 10 technology and 13 business
teams. “We would talk through a status update for each of the
modules in the testing process and identify any issues that
were being discovered,” she
says. The group would then
assign a red, yellow, or green
mark for each module to show
its ongoing readiness for the
go-live date.
CSX established two
governance teams to manage
the ambitious IT project. On
the Oracle E-Business Suite side, the group consisted of
senior-level business and IT managers, Mucha and another
representative from accounting, technology managers,
purchasing professionals, and internal auditors. For the
PeopleSoft Enterprise project, governance was managed by
team members from HR benefits, payroll, and IT as well as
internal auditors.
Mucha considered the internal auditors an integral part
of each governance team. “As a public company, we knew
our external auditors were going to require documentation
of the testing we did for the upgrade,” she explains. “So we
partnered with internal auditors to walk hand in hand with us
through the process.”
The internal audit staff knew what information would be
required for external oversight and enforced a discipline on the
implementation teams to document their activities as they re-
engineered processes and performed their systems tests.
“We got to a point where internal audit was actually participating in the business and technology meetings to stay
abreast of any major issues,” Mucha adds. “The result was that
we didn’t implement the system and then spend the next three
months scrambling to get the auditors comfortable with our
procedures. We stayed ahead of the game.” <>
—Melissa Mucha, Assistant Controller, CSX
THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD GOVERNANCE
Up-front planning was essential for CSX’s successful simultaneous upgrade of its Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft
Enterprise systems. In addition, company executives say, a
strong governance team made a crucial contribution to the
modernization effort’s success.
The governance team provided a forum for keeping
everyone up-to-date on the planning and preimplementation
ALAN JOCH is a New England-based technology writer.
>> FOR MORE INFORMATION
Oracle E-Business Suite
oracle.com/us/products/applications/ebusiness
Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise
oracle.com/us/products/applications/
peoplesoft-enterprise
