Ford Shelves Oracle-Based Procurement System
Email
Print
The auto maker is scrapping a five-year effort to develop a procurement system based on the Oracle 11i e-commerce software, electing instead to return to earlier technology.
After nearly five years of development work, Ford Motor Co. will dismantle an Oracle-based procurement application and shift back to earlier technology, a company spokesman confirmed Thursday. The automaker decided to "transition back to proven current systems" after evaluating the current status of Everest, Ford spokesman Paul Wood said. "Some of the [Everest] functionality that we like we will role forward back into the proven system," Wood said. "So, all is not lost."
Click here to read about upgrades to E-Business Suite Version 11i.10.
Everest was intended to be used by nearly all of Fords suppliers—automobile production suppliers as well as nonproduction suppliers, Wood said.
But not all of its suppliers had transitioned to the Oracle-based system. Suppliers that are currently working with Everest will continue to do so "for some time" until the company is ready to shift them back to the earlier technology, he said.
Oracle is injecting 10g technologies into applications. Click here to read more.
The abandonment of the Everest procurement project doesnt signal a general shift away from Oracle database software or applications, Wood said. "Oracle has many other things going on at Ford. This is just one project–just one platform," he said.
No Ford employees will lose their jobs as a result of the shift away from the Everest procurement system, he said.
Oracle declined to comment on Fords decision to shift back to earlier technology, citing a nondisclosure agreement. But the company issued a statement saying it "continues to support Ford on its back-to-basics strategic initiatives and IT projects."
Check out eWEEK.coms Enterprise Applications Center at http://enterpriseapps.eweek.com for the latest news, reviews and analysis about productivity and business solutions.
Be sure to add our eWEEK.com enterprise applications news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page
John Pallatto is eWEEK.com's Managing Editor News/West Coast. He directs eWEEK's news coverage in Silicon Valley and throughout the West Coast region. He has more than 35 years of experience as a professional journalist, which began as a report with the Hartford Courant daily newspaper in Connecticut. He was also a member of the founding staff of PC Week in March 1984. Pallatto was PC Week's West Coast bureau chief, a senior editor at Ziff Davis' Internet Computing magazine and the West Coast bureau chief at Internet World magazine.
