Lucent Technologies

The Client

Lucent Technologies designs and delivers networks for the world’s largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks.

The Opportunity

With the consolidation and the contraction of the telecommunications industry, Lucent made a strategic decision to expand its use of contract manufacturers. By spinning off manufacturing sites to contract manufacturers, Lucent would be able to focus its resources on developing the advanced networking systems needed by the world’s largest service providers while leveraging the expertise of leading contract manufacturers.

Two sites in particular were in focus, an Oklahoma City facility that makes switching and access products and a Columbus Ohio facility that makes wireless networking equipment. Both sites were using Lucent homegrown legacy applications that needed to be migrated to a more traditional ERP system for the contract manufacturer to use. QAD MFG/Pro was identified as the ERP backbone for the new contract manufacturer.

The pre-acquisition site viewed as a cost center to Lucent now became a profit center organization to the new owner/parent company. Identification of people resources to support business processes for newly created departments such as customer service was required.

Logan Consulting was originally asked to do a gap assessment that determined how Lucent’s customization would affect implementing MFG/PRO purchasing and financials. In addition, Logan Consulting was also tasked with determining what customization’s in MFG/Pro would need to be done in order to work with the 1000 legacy programs that resided between the Columbus and Oklahoma City legacy applications.

The Solution

When Logan arrived, it was discovered that the expected business process flows had not been defined. Further, gaps in the ERP Supply Chain were also discovered. To ensure the conversion went smoothly, Logan went through intensive validation of Lucent’s customization.

Once the validation was completed, Logan documented both the current and future business process flows, giving Lucent the proper foundation for their ERP backbone. Concurrent with the business process work, Logan reinforced and trained the Lucent staff on the new processes, as well as identified new opportunities to leverage the real-time data and information now available in the new system.

To ensure a smooth “Go Live” cutover, Logan also did extensive modification testing as well as orchestrated and oversaw the conference room pilot tests.

The Results

• Lucent successfully went “Go Live” on September 1, 2001 for Phase 1 executing production and fulfillment.
• The successful migration has positioned the contract manufacturer for Phase 2 implementation that will allow the contract manufacturers to eliminate costly inefficiencies and become a World-Class Performance organization.