A Balancing Act: Managing Oracle Applications
Scott Dines
Oracle Systems Manager
Boral Bricks Inc.
History and Current Operations
About Boral Bricks, Inc.
• Largest Clay Brick Manufacturer in the USA
• US Headquarters in Atlanta, GA with administrative
offices in Augusta, GA
• More than doubled in size since 1995
• 21 Plants in 8 states
• 50+ Distribution and sales offices in 11 states
• 1.5 billion brick sold FY’03;
1.6 billion brick Budget FY ‘04
• 20% Sales Growth from FY ’03 to Budget FY ’04
(Acquired largest customer Feb ’03)
• 1700+ Employees
Current Status – Oracle Deployment • Financials Live on Oracle 11i (11.5.7 plus mini-packs)
General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, & Fixed Assets
• Oracle Process Manufacturing (11.5.7 plus mini-pack I)
Production Management, Quality, Inventory, Purchasing, & Order Fulfillment
• 71 locations across Southern United States 21 Manufacturing Plants (Mining to Finished Goods) 50 Distribution and Sales Sites (23 just implemented in 4 months)
• Supporting Boral Industries and it’s subsidiaries(Six Organizations with five Sets of Books)
Boral Bricks USTILE Boral Material Technologies Inc
Boral Bricks Direct Savannah Classic Stone
• Server Hardware: HP / UX
• Wide Area: Fractional T-1 (>=256kb & >8k Cir)
• 100 GB Data Area
• Clients: both NC and PC with Windows Terminal Server for Wide Area
• 30 GB Sales Reporting Data Warehouse
• 3+ Test, Training & Acceptance Environments
Technical Configuration
Node CPU Speed MemoryDatabase 8 750 MHz 16 GBMiddle Tier 8 440 MHz 12 GB
Support for Oracle Applications at Boral Bricks
• 2 Database & 1 UNIX Administrators
• 8 Developers & Applications Support
• 2 1/2 Network, Telecommunications and
Other Technical Administration
• 2 Help Desk Support (Moving to 3 at Help Desk)
• 2 Managers ( SD & TS )
Staffing Levels and Oracle Expertise
• Staff Devoted to Oracle Support 9 System Analysts / Developers / Manager
2 Database Administrators.
• Combined working experience of staff 74 years with Oracle technology
49 years with Oracle applications
157 years with information technology
Management Team Active in IT
• Standing IT Steering Committee Consists of VP and Director level Meets every 6 - 8 weeks.
(During large projects meets every 4 weeks)
Goals and Objectives track status of current projects identify key issues facing business keep management team looking
forward with respect to technology
Major Milestones for Oracle at Boral(See Handout)
• Financials Fast Forward Oracle 10.7 Prod16.1 SC AP, GL (Nov 97) AR, FA (May 98)
Additional Sets of Books – BMTI & Boral Industries (July 98)
USTile (Feb 99) & Savannah Classic Stone (June 02)
• Process Manufacturing (Define, Build and Test) (Sept 99 to May 01)
• 10.7 to 11.5.3 upgrade (Apr 01)
• Process Manufacturing 11.5.3 (Live May 01 to Dec 01)
Production Management, Formula Management,
Quality, Inventory, Order Entry & Shipping, Purchasing,
and Costing (Finished Goods only)
• 11.5.3 to 11.5.7 (plus mini-packs) upgrade (Nov 02)
• Franklin Brick Acquisition 23 additional sites (Apr 03 to Aug 03)
Use of Consultants at Boral
Determination, Management, and Results
Our Goal with Consultants
• Only engaged for knowledge transfer and business process improvement
Never used to “do the work” Used to advise and train Boral staff Paired one-on-one with Boral
staff (IT or key User)
• Only use when Boral IT and “business” has committed resources to project (people, time, and money)
Consulting versus Internal Staffing
• Large projects; Internal Boral Staff moved out of positions and onto project team Used Consulting to train and guide
Boral Project Team Project management Boral
responsibility assisted by consulting group
Example: Process Manufacturing Project we dedicated 7 people full time (2 yrs)
Boral’s Use of Consultants
• Fast Forward Financials: Configuration 1st two sets of books on 10.7 (100 days) – Oracle Consulting
• Assist in define and build Process Manufacturing 11.0.3 (200 days) – Oracle Consulting
• 23 Reports for Process Manufacturing 11.5.3 (45 days) – Sierra Atlantic (Outsourced: India)
• Functional Assistance – 10.7 to 11.5.3 (45 days) – Oracle Consulting
Boral’s Use of Consultants
• Purchasing Configuration 11.5.3 (45 days) –SBI & Company
• OPM Customization work 11.5.3 (80 days) – Sierra Atlantic
• 1st Portal Installation (5 days) – Sierra Atlantic
• Tuning Work 11.5.3 (5 days) - Oracle Consulting
Other Lessons Learned
• Interview, interview, interview
• Be quick to fire
• Build relationships with one or two key partners, but keep talking to other vendors
• Use internal staff for majority of customization work
The Payoff
• 11.5.3 Configuration and Go Live for Process completed internally from 11.0.3 consulting work
• 11.5.7 Upgrade completed internally• Support of all custom code internal• Knowledge base of staff of custom code,
configurations and business allows us to react to changes in business
• KEY: Not dependent on any external parties to run your business
Next Steps
Future Projects
• 9i Database upgrade
• Personal Web Pages for Executive and Line Managers Containing Both KPI and Business Intelligence Data
• New Order Management
• CRM & E-commerce (Business to Business)
Everyone is looking for the “wow”“wow”.
But the “wow” factor comes from
doing the basic things right,doing the basic things right,
all the time!all the time!