Background
An Australian manufacturing group grown by acquisition ran four ERP platforms across four business units, each closing on its own calendar and reconciling to group through a consolidation spreadsheet. Two previous consolidation programmes had stalled on an unresolved question: whose process becomes the standard.
Work performed
- Six weeks of process arbitration across order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and financial close; each standard process selected on cost, control and customer consequence, with the winning unit chairing adoption.
- Platform selection run against the arbitrated process; the deciding factor was the partner's contractual commitment to the data migration burden.
- Group master data office stood up with golden sources and named owners; cleansing run by domain before migration.
- Point-to-point interfaces reduced from over two hundred to a small integration layer with defined patterns.
- Unit-by-unit cutovers sequenced by readiness, each with a full dress rehearsal against production data and a planned production build-ahead.
Outcome
The first full group close ran on one platform eighteen months from arbitration. Close duration fell 62% against the fastest legacy calendar. The master data office continued after the programme; two units have since extended the platform into planning and shop-floor reporting.
The third unit's cutover slipped five weeks after rehearsal found a costing edge case — negative stock in transit from a legacy workaround — that would have corrupted valuation at go-live.