Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation Services to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is the Nation's premiere nuclear laboratory for developing and applying science and technology to ensure the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear deterrent; reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, and terrorism; and solve national problems in defense, energy, environment, and infrastructure.

The Laboratory encompasses over 8,000 employees and 3,000 contractor personnel with an annual budget from the Department of Energy of over $2B. There is over 39 square miles of Laboratory with 47 technical areas and over 2,000 individual facilities located in northern New Mexico .

ASRCC has provided Oracle Applications implementation services to Los Alamos National Laboratory for their Enterprise Project (EP). Services have included program management, functional, technical, quality assurance and organization change management consulting and training in the implementation of Oracle Applications Release 11.5.9: General Ledger, Account Receivable, Accounts Payable, Project Accounting, Purchasing, iProcurement, iSupplier, Exchange, Data Warehouse, Reports and Discoverer 6i, as well as several complex extensions to Accounts Receivable, Project Accounting, and Purchasing.

ASRCC has used Earned Value Management System (EVMS) processes and procedures based on the Defense Contract Management Agency's (DCMA) policies and procedures to effectively initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control this large and complex project, currently over $120M in budget and 120 project team organization. The implementation is a "projectized" organization comprising of a matrix of divisions of the Laboratory of project and functional professionals. The project is monitored and controlled by a Program Management Office in which the ASRCC senior program manager interacts and provides work performance information, tracking and earned value metrics. Deliverables are executed using Oracle Application Implementation Method and monitored and controlled using EVMS.

All Oracle Applications setups, Reports, Interfaces, Conversion and Extensions (RICE) are designed, developed and implemented using a phased approach that includes gap analysis, requirements definition, functional design, technical design, unit testing, system integration testing, user acceptance testing and migration to production, using a tightly controlled configuration management process and collaboration tool. Testing is promoted from development, to an ALPHA system testing environment, to a BETA user acceptance and QA environment and finally to production when all approvals have been given. Changes to any production components are tracked in detail in the configuration management collaboration tool and approved by a Configuration Management Review Board (CMRB). The implementation of the Oracle ERP has been phased into multiple releases, which are currently in production operations. Because of the phased approach with multiple releases, there are several complex inbound and outbound interfaces to the existing legacy system, which is being decommissioned over time.

ASRCC has also provided organization change management, documentation and training for the EP. Organization change management has included strategy and planning, communications, stakeholder development and management, organization analysis and design, documenting business processes, analyzing and improving management systems, defining roles and developing responsibilities that ensure separation of duty, creating staffing profiles, and preparing end users for change. Documentation has primarily used the Oracle Tutor procedure documentation tool to develop and publish project documentation and desk manuals. Training has included analyzing training requirements, conducting train the trainer training on standard Oracle Applications functionality, designing end user training based on specifications of the modules implemented, developing courseware and conducting pilot training classes to improve the courseware, registering and scheduling hundreds of students, preparing classrooms and training infrastructure, delivering the training, conducting course evaluations and managing training records to indicate end users that have been properly trained to use the implemented modules, and posting courseware to a Web site.