Simon Sharwood reports that Fujitsu has become the latest service provider to be associated with a failed SAP project in Australia, after a project it led saw the buyer underwhelmed despite going over time and over budget.
The project in question was an asset management system for the government of Australia’s Northern Territory. The Territory is huge – Spain, France and the Great Britain would all fit within its borders – yet it is home to under 250,000 people who vote for a small-but-feisty Parliament that operates a government closely resembling that of any other Westminster system jurisdiction, complete with ministries and all the trimmings.
In 2009 the Territory’s Department of Infrastructure tendered for a new asset management system, and picked Fujitsu’s $AUD14m bid for a project expected to conclude the following year. The application eventually went live in 2012.
One reason for the mess, as noted in an Auditor-General’s report was the fact that “… high turnover of SI consultants saw a total of eleven Fujitsu project managers during the three years from the start of the project until Phase 1 go-live in April 2012.” One of those project managers seems to have worked on the project for eight hours.
The Auditor General also noted that “organisational change management and the level of engagement by user Agencies was insufficient for the size and complexity of the AMS project” while “effectiveness of … governance was affected by a lack of clear recognition and reporting of key risks and issues confronting the project and their potential effects.”
The Territory’s Public Accounts Committee yesterday conducted a public hearing into the project during which infrastructure department deputy chief executive Anne Bradford said IT staff believe the application delivered 97 per cent of the spec, but that users say 12 per cent of functions work as required.
The Territory has now commenced work on a new application. It is not clear if it will be an SAP based one or not.
Read more : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/28/another_big_sap_project_hits_the_rocks_in_oz/
