Re: BPCS and JDE

Tanweer,

In a message dated 98-01-07 00:06:23 EST, you write:

> I am currently evaluating  SSA's BPCS and J. D. Edwards 's "One World" 
>  products.  Can current users of these products fill me with their 
>  experience with regards to technical support from the vendors of these 
>  products.   How would they rate (on a scale of 0-5, 0 being lowest and 5 
>  being highest)  the on-going support i.e. bugs and issues resolution, new 
>  functionality, response time during trouble shooting. 

I am a BPCS consultant by trade.  I hesitate to rate, as my perception is that
things are getting better from SSA (they couldn't have gotten much worse).
Your categories don't exactly match an overall 0-5 rating, so I'll try to
comment on each rating.  Understand also that my current primary client is a
$38B/year manufacturer with a stated direction of putting BPCS into every
plant that's "a fit", and the mileage of smaller manufacturers may vary.

1.  On-going support (telephone) - 1 for level 1, 3-4 for level 2.  Unless
your question is in the "how do I...?" category, level 1 invariably gives the
wrong answer -- if you have a technical staff familiar with BPCS, how many
"how do I...?" questions get asked?  To be fair, I've heard similar reports
for JDE, but am not personally familiar with their products.  SSA's level 2
(when you can get level 1 to send you there) support is much better, but
suffers from a bad case of getting a different answer to the same question
depending on who you talk to on Help Line.  You also get overseas personnel
when calling outside normal Central Time business hours, who usually advise
you to call back during normal business hours -- not helpful when your weekend
upgrade crashed at 2AM.

On the bright side, SSA's client site on the Internet for known program bugs
is actually quite good.  If the bug has already been fixed, you can find a
solution easily.  Downside -- they've started packaging BMR's (BPCS
Modification Requests, and yes it's a Modification Request to make the program
work right) so that all programs touched by the offending program are sent,
even if they weren't changed.

2.  Bugs and Issues Resolution - 3 for bugs, 0 for issues.  If a program truly
has a bug that doesn't get written off as "working as designed" (they'd get a
5 if this excuse didn't come up so often), a fix is often forthcoming rather
quickly.  Unfortunately, SSA is so busy working on bugs, issues usually become
"E" BMR's (for "enhancement"), which is your programmatic equivalent of a
"lame duck" legislature.  Response time and troubleshooting fall into this
category.

3.  New Functionality - 5 for V6, 0 for its implementation.  The new release
has _FANTASTIC_ functionality enhancements, especially considering that Y2K
compliance was its primary goal.  Again unfortunately, the implementation of
these changes wasn't exactly stellar.  Sales Order Entry (which now has a
green-screen version available) and the Accounting modules went full client-
server.  SSA has yet to provide (after over two years' worth of promises) a
copy of the development tool for customers to modify these programs
themselves.  In the "full client" version of BPCS/CS, anything outside of
Order Entry and Accounting actually just uses a screen-scraper (ODO).  PC
configuration requirements for BPCS client applications generally exceed those
of even the most generous organizations (32Mb of Memory Pentium with large
disk capacity), and "look up" capabilities are substandard for people with
large databases.  Performance of many applications is _EXTREMELY_ poor.

SSA is working rapidly to fix these problems, but people upgrading for Y2K are
_VERY_ nervous.  Many performance problems come from the use of SQL to
facilitate the port of the product to UNIX, and many performance "fixes"
optimize the SQL rather than removing it entirely (as should be done on the
AS/400).  The SQL probably won't bother you if you have a small database, but
get 200K+ records in your routing, bill of material, item master, and
transaction history files and you have another story entirely.

If you are planning an implementation of either BPCS or JDE in the near
future, product may go out of the picture entirely if you need help with the
implementation.  99% of BPCS is now written in their AS/Set CASE tool, and
much of JDE is written in their "World Vision" tool.  Availability of
consultants or contractors in your area with these skill sets may _GREATLY_
impact your decision on either one, as most are already booked with Y2K or
upgrade projects.

Note that David has generously allocated bandwith to a BPCS version of
MIDRANGE-L.  To subscribe, send a message to BPCS-L-SUB@midrange.com.  Subject
and text are irrelevant unless your mailer requires it, in which case type in
anything.  Feel free to write me directly if you have any specific BPCS
questions...

HTH,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"Governments ruled by people will make war in a fashion that will make wars
waged by kings pale in comparison." -- Sir Winston Churchill
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