A Day in the Life of Celanese's Big ERP Rollup
Postscript
While Peters, Carlson and Perroni are figuring out how to bring OneSAP to life, upstairs Wachs will e-mail SAP to press the vendor on the supply chain event management issue. SAP, Wachs will learn, doesn’t think the beta code is ready to be shipped. Not good for the OneSAP schedule.
The e-mail exchange will turn into conference calls. And Wachs will have his CD-ROMs within four weeks’ time. The supply chain software module won’t put the project behind schedule.
Wachs will also attend a key budget meeting with the COO Weidman. He’s probably showing Weidman what he once described as the hockey stick curve?"that shows the tremendous expense now will lead to a future that’s bright, I promise."
In his office, looking out on the LBJ Freeway, a shiny ribbon in the morning sun, he says, "You see why we have to do this? If we don’t go to one system, our five units will drift apart. Looking at other companies doing this, we see substantial cost reductions. You know nearly a half in some cases. All that cost and complexity can go away.
"But if all that goes away," he says, smiling, "what is my job?" He laughs.
