Julie S Newlin

Minimizing the Human Capital Aspect of Productivity Disruption During Implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning System Julie S Newlin

Publisher Marketing: The Air Force is investing a great deal of time and money in development of the Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS), an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. When implemented, ECSS will completely transform the way the logistics community does business. It will reduce 400 plus legacy systems to just one enterprise wide system, as well as touch every process we operate and make major changes to most of these processes (Dunn, 2007). With any process change as large as ECSS, there will be a dip in productivity during implementation. In order to minimize the productivity dip, it is necessary to have a realistic expectation regarding depth and duration of the dip, and understand the factors that contribute to the dip including how to manage them. The literature identifies what typical productivity changes look like over the duration of an implementation, but does not specifically address the factors that contribute to the dip. The intent of this study is to identify human capital factors that affect the dip. Then, using a multiple case study methodology, the study empirically tests how well the identified factors compare to what companies who implemented ERP systems actually experienced. Finally, this study identifies how companies can address human capital factors to minimize the dip.