After operating on a non-integrated legacy financial system for more than 18 years, the city realized that the implementation of a new enterprise software solution would be required. Initially, the scope of work for this project consisted of replacing the city’s existing financial system first, followed by Human Resources and Payroll. It was originally planned for implementation to start in 2003-2004. However, in April 1999, the city received notification from their existing Human Resources/Payroll software provider that support of their then current system would be stopped in 18 months.

“This notification came as a surprise and we were required to speed up the process and began a thorough assessment of the city’s technology needs and our system as a whole,” said Tammy Hitchens, accounting manager and co-project manager. “As we got further into the assessment we realized that our best option would be through a complete enterprise software solution, which would meet our technology needs well into the future.”

The city went through the process of establishing a budget and asked Deloitte & Touche to assist them during their software selection process. In addition, the city began hosting focus groups and other events to gather information and better position themselves as they searched for a new software system.

As the selection process moved forward, RFPs were issued and reviewed, demos provided and a short list assigned. Software vendors making the city’s short list included JD Edwards, SAP and PeopleSoft. After final demos were provided and discussions took place, JD Edwards was selected as the city’s software vendor of choice.

“JD Edwards was selected for many reasons including integration, flexibility and a lower cost of ownership,” said Hitchens. “In addition, we required a software system that would not only store and process our data, but one that also provided efficient capabilities to locate and extract information and seamless reporting features. Through JD Edwards, we found these benefits.”

Once JD Edwards was selected, the City of Westminster was tasked with finding a business partner to assist in the software implementation process. To accomplish this, the city solicited bids from authorized business partners who could provide a successful JD Edwards software implementation.

“We received bids from three business partners with JD Edwards public sector experience implementing the OneWorld software. We selected a business partner based on their qualifications as a JD Edwards authorized business partner, the RFP outline of services and strategy for implementation, extent of the organization’s experience and price,” said Debbie Mitchell, human resource manager and co-project manager, the City of Westminster. “In the end we chose AMX International because of their extensive JD Edwards knowledge, collaborative approach, overall commitment to customer satisfaction and expertise with government customers.”

During the project, AMX International provided the city with the following services:

“AMX has a very strong knowledge and understanding of JD Edwards and has years of experience in the public sector,” said Mitchell. “We felt like our strengths would compliment each other and that this would be a win-win partnership.”

The implementation project is now complete with more than 400 users currently benefiting from the new JD Edwards system. Overall, the project was a success and completed on-time and under budget.

“AMX is committed to helping customers learn the JD Edwards system at the same time they are doing the initial set-up and implementation,” said Hitchens. “They are committed to sticking to projects deadlines and especially to the budget. In addition, the AMX consultants have an excellent skill set and background in JD Edwards and in public sector software implementation.”

Westminster has identified an opportunity to enhance its ability to prepare and manage the city’s budgeting processes. To fulfill this need, the city has developed its own Budget Preparation Module. This module was developed completely in-house utilizing the JD Edwards development toolkit.

“As we got further into our JD Edwards implementation process, we realized that in order to maximize our ability to prepare, control and manage the city’s budget we needed some complimentary functionality,” said Hitchens. “We have developed the Budget Preparation Module with the JD Edwards development toolkit and are currently receiving many benefits. Additionally, we have received some interest from other municipalities to use our solution for their budgeting needs.”

The city’s Budget Preparation Module is an enhancement to JD Edwards’ Budget Module. This solution enables users to add detail to budget requests at the line item level; provides budget development information after a budget submittal review and approval process; and has many pre-built summary and reporting features.

Although the city of Westminster recently concluded their JD Edwards software implementation, they are anticipating some future software solution enhancements.

“We have a project coming up to implement some advanced solutions and enhancements to the JD Edwards Human Resources and Payroll module,” said Mitchell. “This project will include employee self-service functionality and automated time entry. This technology will enable our employees to enter their time via the Internet. In addition, we are also in the process of adding the training information to the system and our workers compensation information.”

“Overall, we are very pleased with our JD Edwards implementation provided by AMX International,” said Hitchens. “The software has met our needs and we look forward to utilizing additional technology in the future. To date, we have only scratched the surface of what the software solution can do for the City of Westminster.”

Company: Utah Transit Authority (UTA)

Organization Profile: A Leader in Providing Public Transportation Services

Utah Transit Authority (UTA), located in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a multi-modal transportation organization that provides a complete line of transportation services including bus, light rail, van, carpooling, and ride sharing services. Founded in 1970, UTA is a leader in providing public transportation services and currently has 23 light rail cars, 550 buses, seven state-of-the-art maintenance facilities and employs more than 1,500 people.

In addition, UTA provides many valuable services to the disabled community through its “Flex Trans” program, which provides point-to-point prescription services with specialized buses that provide door-to-door transportation services.

In 1999, UTA’s ridership totaled more than 24 million passengers. UTA services an average of more than 100,000 passengers daily through its light rail and bus services combined, with an average of more than 19,000 passengers per day on light rail alone. As a result of its commitment to rider safety, the organization has received numerous local and national awards for safety, operations and engineering.

Industry Challenges: Complete Integration for all of UTA’s Business Units

In recent years, UTA has experienced an increase in total ridership and has expanded its services to include new channels of transportation for millions of riders each year. As a result of this outstanding growth, which resulted in the purchase of additional of buses, vans, and light rail cars, UTA’s business operations became increasingly difficult to manage on their existing enterprise system and the need to implement a new solution was quickly recognized by management to achieve UTA’s overall goals and objectives.

Not only was managing the purchasing, inventory, and maintenance for each vehicle becoming a challenge, but UTA’s accounting system was also in question. Operating on a 20-year-old archaic system, which had been three times re-written, was making accounting processes very labor intensive and cross departmental reporting and processing difficult to manage.

“We had many different business units operating on applications that were not integrated. On one hand we had our accounting system and A/P operating alone, our purchasing and inventory department running by itself, and then maintenance and fleet management operating independently,” said Dan Harps, comptroller for UTA. “There was no integration between any of our operating business departments. This resulted in a lot of paper flow and very labor intensive business processes. Our initial goal was to replace our accounting system, but it became apparent early in our investigation that our organization was not integrated and that a total enterprise management solution could serve the purpose of bringing all of these separate units together.”

A very long and extensive search process had UTA attending trade shows, requesting product demos, performing on-site client visits, and participating in other activities during their review for a complete enterprise solution. After nearly six months of research and investigation, UTA ultimately chose JD Edwards OneWorld® as their new enterprise management solution. The implementation of JD Edwards would integrate the entire organization, replace their outdated applications, and provide flexibility in data importing, exporting, designing user interfaces, and making any future system changes.

“Overall, the integration capabilities and the flexible architecture of JD Edwards OneWorld assisted us in making this very critical decision,” continued Harps. “Some of the other solutions we researched seemed much more complicated and too involved to implement and use. Also, OneWorld’s accounting system and functionality seemed to be more solid and dependable when compared to the other enterprise solutions we evaluated.”

The AMX Solution: Consultants Possessing Applications, Technical, and CNC Expertise

After the decision was made to implement JD Edwards, AMX International was selected as UTA’s implementation partner of choice. AMX’s qualified consultants implemented JD Edwards OneWorld, which included General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Inventory, Purchasing, and Fleet Management. The extensive nature of this project required a partner who was very qualified and experienced in implementing JD Edwards enterprise solutions.

During the project AMX’s consultants also provided technical support and configurable network computing (CNC) services. In the beginning, UTA performed an extensive assessment of current technology and identified what elements needed to be added in order to ensure a successful implementation. Once all of the hardware components where in place, UTA called on AMX to perform the installation, configuration and implementation of JD Edwards.

“We were very impressed with the way AMX’s technical consultants responded to our requests and their approaches regarding security and hardware implementation. Our AMX consultants have very high credibility with JD Edwards and UTA and they work exceptionally well with our people by providing the appropriate training and a complete knowledge transfer to our internal implementation team and users,” said Fiet. “The project leaders at UTA who have worked with AMX’s consultants have a great deal of confidence in their patience, ability, and overall knowledge of implementing JD Edwards. AMX’s consultants don’t let you sit back. They were in constant contact with our team to discuss how the project was going and to identify next steps throughout the entire implementation process.”

UTA realized that their new enterprise system would not function properly without proper training, education, and a complete knowledge transfer. AMX provided UTA with in-house pre and post implementation education and assisted with the initial training for JD Edwards common foundation. In addition, AMX opened their internal training facilities to UTA for workshops, planning sessions, and other scheduled meetings.

“AMX has a very attractive office near our corporate headquarters that is complete with training and development rooms and personal workstations. The ability to have our implementation partner so close to us and the availability of these accommodating facilities was yet another valuable resource during this project,” said Fiet. “All of the consultants at AMX are excellent to work with. UTA was able to use AMX’s Salt Lake City office for critical planning and project management sessions, which provided an excellent opportunity for the project team to have open and constructive discussions. The ability to pull people off-site and bring them into a different environment enabled us to focus on the project at hand instead of the daily demands of the office.”

“The entire AMX approach to implementing JD Edwards is to provide clients with a complete knowledge transfer. It seems their methodology is to be with us in the beginning, provide training and a transfer of their understanding of the system, and then let our team members perform the JD Edwards functions after that,” said Harps. “Even though we are now able to operate our JD Edwards system on our own, I am still comfortable calling them at any time to ask questions or resolve issues.”

Building Business Value: Trust and Confidence in the Enterprise System

The successful implementation of JD Edwards has added value to UTA. From an accounting standpoint, the new system is much more efficient, responsive, and capable of meeting UTA’s demands. The addition, JD Edwards is also allowing the company to function efficiently, without any system downtime.

“Our new system is much more efficient and ready to meet our customers needs. Now when an outside vendor calls we don’t have to go to our filing cabinets and research a paper trail. Instead, we can key in a specific request into the system and see our results immediately,” said Harps. “Overall, the entire system runs much smoother and is much more efficient. As we increase our system with additional functionality we expect to see even greater benefits.”

“The implementation of this new solution has enabled UTA to see immediate savings and cost benefit in many aspects of our business processes. Our new JD Edwards solution will also allow us to put more trust into our enterprise system, which will allow us to reach our primary corporate goal of providing quality service to our customers,” said Fiet. “We are confident that we will continue to see the value of our business rise as we maximize our opportunity to use this comprehensive, responsive, and fully integrated OneWorld solution.”

The Future: Implementing Other JD Edwards Modules

AMX International is now heavily involved in implementing additional JD Edwards modules for UTA, including Budgeting, Accounts Receivable, CSMS, Job Cost, Grant Accounting, and some aspects of Advanced Maintenance. With the success of the project to date, UTA has also decided to evaluate the Payroll and Human Resources modules in the future.

“The work AMX has performed is excellent and we are confident that we will continue to see great results,” said Fiet. “Their consultants have the push to keep the project on schedule, but the patience to understand our concerns. All of the consultants we have associated with have worked in that way. It has often times been the case that AMX’s consultants have the ability to talk candidly with our employees about issues regarding the enterprise system that we otherwise could not easily discuss amongst ourselves.”

UTA at a Glance:

Company: King County Library System (KCLS)

King County Library System…The Next Page in Complete JD Edwards Enterprise Solutions

As one of the largest public library systems in the United States, King County Library System (KCLS) turned to AMX International for a complete JD Edwards OneWorld® enterprise system, including integration expertise, implementation services and product extensions.

Organization Profile: One of the Top-Five Largest in Circulation Library System in the United States

As one of the leading library systems in the United States, KCLS understands what is required for public services area organizations to be successful in today’s competitive, and often times challenging, economy. With 41 branch libraries located throughout King County, Washington, an area of approximately 2,000 square miles, KCLS provides a variety of services to millions of citizens in the cities and communities surrounding Seattle. With multiple locations and a specific department dedicated to supporting alternative literacy locations, including the county jail, juvenile system and rehabilitation centers, KCLS operates as a full-service library and has the third-largest circulation in the United States.

With more than 1,300 employees, KCLS understands that to be truly successful in today’s competitive economy, public services organizations must be progressive and proactively looking for opportunities to enhance business processes and integrate enterprise software functionality.

Organizational Challenges: Upgrading a Home-Grown and Disparate Legacy System

For more than 10 years, KCLS had utilized a home-grown legacy system to manage all departments and business units within its organization. Although this enterprise system had successfully worked in the past, recent growth and expansion required KCLS to review its current system and look for opportunities in which business processes could be improved and enhanced.

“We had a home grown enterprise financial system that had not been updated, aside from some Y2K compatibility and analysis, for approximately 10 years,” said Darlene Pearsall, Computer Education Development Trainer and Project Manager, KCLS. “This system operated on a non- relational database, which made it very difficult to process HR and payroll, particularly when an individual worked in two departments or had two separate pay scales. In these situations, all paychecks were required to be processed manually. Prior to implementing our new enterprise solution we were required to manually process nearly 50 percent of our payroll.”

Pearsall continued, “In addition, the human resource system had been operating on an outdated database that previously pulled information from our home-grown enterprise system. Once our legacy financial system stopped working our human resource department had no current data. We also had no online time entry or purchasing systems functionality built into our enterprise system. The combination of these issues required KCLS to operate the majority of our business with Excel spreadsheets. As a $60 Million organization we quickly realized that we couldn’t operate like this for very long and that we had some serious software issues on our hands.”

As a result of their legacy system problems, KCLS searched for a new enterprise system. In the end it was JD Edwards OneWorld that KCLS selected as their new enterprise software solution.

“After several months of a detailed search and review of enterprise software solutions, we determined that JD Edwards was the software vendor that was best positioned to provide KCLS with the features and robust functionality needed to accommodate our daily requirements and satisfy our long-term goals and strategies,” concluded Pearsall.

The AMX Solution: A Complete JD Edwards Enterprise Solution and Total Success!

Once JD Edwards was selected as the new KCLS enterprise system, AMX rapidly began the implementation and installation of OneWorld. With a team of expert consultants in place and utilizing AMX’s proven A.I.M. implementation methodology, the project was positioned to be a success from the very beginning.

The complex nature of the KCLS organization required AMX to provide a full range of consulting services, including applications, technical, integration, Configurable Network Computing (CNC), custom development and overall project management.

“When you have as many employees, vendors, suppliers and multiple locations as we do, you must have a complete enterprise solution that produces total success from beginning to end. Our unique business operations required AMX to provide expertise in many different areas in order to accomplish our goals and objectives of an on-time and on-budget total solution,” said Pearsall.

AMX’s quality consultants set-up the technical infrastructure and environment for KCLS in addition to the implementation and applications consulting work. The KCLS enterprise system includes the following components:

“On the technical side, I personally believe that the greatest benefit AMX offers KCLS is their technical expertise and knowledge of implementing and configuring complex enterprise software solutions,” said Ken Ninke, JD Edwards Network Systems Administrator/Programmer, KCLS. “AMX has extensive experience in working with a variety of customers and has successfully overcome many different issues in providing Configurable Network Computing (CNC) services, setting-up the infrastructure and implementing robust enterprise software systems. This valuable experience enables AMX to quickly resolve issues and troubleshoot problems, thus resulting in efficient consulting services and rapid implementations.”

“The applications consulting services that AMX provided KCLS were excellent. Our AMX consultants possessed a wealth of knowledge about JD Edwards and understood exactly what was required to get our software running,” said Pearsall. “Additionally, they continually put our best interests first to ensure that our needs and expectations would be met through the implementation and utilization of JD Edwards.”

“AMX is an organization that I continually recommend for JD Edwards enterprise software implementation. AMX has provided KCLS with a complete enterprise solution. They have added significant value to our organization and significantly lowered our total cost of ownership with JD Edwards,” said Ninke.

Quantifiable Results: Enhance Capabilities for Future Technology Enhancements

As a result of their new JD Edwards enterprise software solution and the quality work performed by AMX International’s technical and applications consultants, KCLS has seen a rapid ROI, increased efficiency in their business operations and enhanced value in their enterprise.

“Overall, the performance of our business operations has enhanced greatly and we are seeing excellent results from our JD Edwards solution. Our HR/Payroll issues are resolved, manual entry is no longer required and our financials are operating at an all-time high. Implementing JD Edwards has also given us the flexibility to integrate to additional best-of-class software applications and perform custom development work as needed,” said Pearsall.

As a result of the success KCLS experienced in implementing OneWorld, they are now considering future JD Edwards projects they would like to include in the future that would provide additional features and functionality.

“As a public services organization our future depends on the citizens of King County and we are required to get voter funding authorization prior to beginning any new projects. We are hopeful that in the future we will be able to pursue an implementation of a facilities management package and additional functionality to track large capital projects, such as building a new library,” said Pearsall.

AMX Project Team: Committed to Complete Enterprise Solutions

Implementing JD Edwards for KCLS required a total team effort, both from KCLS and from AMX. In order to accomplish this project, a combination of skill sets and resources were required. In addition, a solid commitment to quality and customer satisfactions was required from both teams.

“As with all enterprise software implementations, a total team effort is required from both parties and this project was no different. KCLS and AMX worked together from start to finish to ensure that expectations were met and that in the end KCLS was perfectly satisfied with their new software investment,” said Pearsall. “AMX provided just the right resources, both on-site and remotely, and the skill sets necessary to accomplish our project objectives.”

“Large enterprise projects like this typically have problems to solve and challenges to overcome. We worked diligently to proactively identify potential issues to ensure that time wasn’t lost and that we didn’t get sidetracked from our project focus and goals. In the end, KCLS and AMX successfully implemented JD Edwards and we continue to look towards AMX for future technical and applications consulting work.”