JD Edwards Upgrade Delivered On Time, On Budget

The Organization

The client is a national quick service restaurant (QSR) chain, with over a billion dollars in annual sales. The company employs over 18,000 people and continues to grow through new store openings and acquisitions.

The Problem

The quick service restaurant implemented JDE 8.0 back in 2004, and was several releases behind. The servers, databases and ancillary systems as part of their existing JDE 8.0 environment were also outdated.

In order to continue support and future maintenance it was imperative that they upgrade to the current version of JDE 9.0 and update their systems. This upgrade would position them well for future growth, and enable them to take advantage of newer technologies.

The Solution

Smartbridge identified the key obstacles that needed to be overcome in the technical upgrade including:

• Retrofit on over 1,000 customizations in the current version of JDE
• Retrofit/modification of over 100 custom interfaces to/from JDE
• Replacement of old databases and servers
• Implementation of BI Publisher to replace Formscape – which supports printing of 20,000 payroll checks per week, as well as Account Payable checks
• Hard time-line/completion data by end of Oct 2011

In order get the upgrade accomplished on time and on budget, Smartbridge leveraged the Global Delivery Model utilizing our offshore team in coordination with the onsite team to complete retro-fit of the customizations and interfaces. This allowed the retro-fit phase of the project to be completed it 2 months.

Smartbridge tapped into deep experience executing upgrades, and knowledge of the inter-connected systems to identify and help the restaurant update their databases and servers seamlessly. Using in-depth knowledge of JDE and BI Publisher, Smartbridge implemented customizations to allow for check printing to both sequence, and burst as required, and re-print the check on-demand as needed.

The Result

The client completed the technical JDE upgrade on time and on budget. This upgrade initiative provided several benefits to the client:

• Significant improvements in overall system performance – Payroll processing of checks used to take over 8 hours, now check are processed and printed in 4 hours.
• Updated technology – The servers, databases, and related software were updated, extending their lifecycle, and improving security.
• Software consolidation and cost reduction through replacement of Formscape with built-in BI Publisher.
• Better positioned to take advantage of JDE 9.0 new functionality and enhancements to improve business processes.