SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that one of Alabama's largest utilities providers, Huntsville Utilities, has successfully gone live with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP® ERP as part of the SAP® for Utilities solution portfolio, implemented within budget and on time. The announcement was made at the SAP for Utilities Conference North America, being held in Washington, D.C., September 16-18.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/...)
SAP for Utilities solutions support providers of water, power, gas and electricity in both the private and public sector, from local area providers to extensive firms working across states and regions. By running SAP solutions, companies can have improved access to data for faster, more efficient reporting, along with a clearer overview of business processes.
Huntsville Utilities, located in Huntsville, Alabama, is owned by the city but functions as three separate systems operating under separate boards, appointed by the City Council. The gas, water and electric systems share top management, customer services, billing, meter reading, human resources, accounting and purchasing capabilities in order to provide low-cost services to 160,000 electric, 47,000 gas and 84,000 water customers throughout Huntsville and Madison County, Alabama. Each system pays its share of expenses and generates financial reports, the need for which played an integral role in Huntsville's selection of SAP solutions. In early August 2009, Huntsville Utilities became operational with a full enterprise resource planning suite from SAP. The deployment replaced the utility provider's 30-year-old legacy COBOL applications for financials, procurement, inventory management, work management, human resources, payroll and reporting.
"We now operate a unique integrated system that combines gas, water and electric services under one umbrella, but requires a lot of configuration to keep those processes separate and streamlined," said Gary Sparks, CIO, Huntsville Utilities. "After consulting with others that have had success with a similar system, we were confident that SAP could configure the software in a way to keep prices low for our customers, and ensure better efficiency for our operations on the whole."
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/...)
SAP for Utilities solutions support providers of water, power, gas and electricity in both the private and public sector, from local area providers to extensive firms working across states and regions. By running SAP solutions, companies can have improved access to data for faster, more efficient reporting, along with a clearer overview of business processes.
Huntsville Utilities, located in Huntsville, Alabama, is owned by the city but functions as three separate systems operating under separate boards, appointed by the City Council. The gas, water and electric systems share top management, customer services, billing, meter reading, human resources, accounting and purchasing capabilities in order to provide low-cost services to 160,000 electric, 47,000 gas and 84,000 water customers throughout Huntsville and Madison County, Alabama. Each system pays its share of expenses and generates financial reports, the need for which played an integral role in Huntsville's selection of SAP solutions. In early August 2009, Huntsville Utilities became operational with a full enterprise resource planning suite from SAP. The deployment replaced the utility provider's 30-year-old legacy COBOL applications for financials, procurement, inventory management, work management, human resources, payroll and reporting.
"We now operate a unique integrated system that combines gas, water and electric services under one umbrella, but requires a lot of configuration to keep those processes separate and streamlined," said Gary Sparks, CIO, Huntsville Utilities. "After consulting with others that have had success with a similar system, we were confident that SAP could configure the software in a way to keep prices low for our customers, and ensure better efficiency for our operations on the whole."
