Birmingham Airport
Birmingham Airport is the UK's fifth largest airport,
third largest for charter traffic and has the highest proportion of
business traffic second only to London Heathrow. In 2005, it
handled over nine million passengers through its two
terminals.
The reasons for change
Back in March 2005, Birmingham Airport was using a major US ERP system,
which had been in place for nine years with 30 concurrent users and
140 users on the web front end.
Wayne Smith, IT Systems Manager at Birmingham Airport, told us
what led them to the decision to change their business systems. "We have
a steering group that monitors the performance of our financial
systems. For some time we had been aware of the increasing costs of
ownership and maintenance. Not only did this include the annual
maintenance and support costs, but there was an ever increasing
demand on the time of support staff. The system also had a poor
image internally so we undertook an exercise to examine the cost
benefit of changing the system. Whatever system we chose had to
address our issues, but overall, it was vital to the organisation
that a system was selected that supported our core business
processes."
Birmingham Airport's Financial Accountant, Jane Clarence,
highlights some of the problems with their previous system. "For us
in the finance function, data extraction was a big problem. To produce reports, we were
having to output the data, re-format it and insert it into Excel. We tried using an Excel
add-in, and then our software provider at the time suggested we buy
a dedicated reporting and analysis tool. We suddenly realised that
the money we'd have to spend on that would go a fair way to buying
a brand new system."
"FocalPoint offers tight integration with Dimensions
and allows Birmingham Airport to control costs and approvals."
Wayne Smith
IT Systems Manager
Birmingham Airport's system requirements
Before system selection could begin, Birmingham Airport mapped
every process that interfaced with their financial system.
That generated a two-inch thick document. The Financial Systems
Manager, the Purchasing Manager and the IT Systems Manager did the
first pass to see what interfaces they would need for different
people in the organisation and therefore what functionality a new
financials package would need.
They identified that they were looking for an ERP system with
user-friendly, web-based procurement. In
addition they needed to be able to track projects, e.g., extensions
to terminal buildings. Project managers also needed to be able to
access this information. They wanted to introduce a workflow element into the
software to reduce manual procedures.
Choosing and implementing a new system
Jane comments: "When we started looking at what was out there,
we realised how much things had moved on in the world of financial
packages. We attended the Softworld Accounting & HR Exhibition
and that helped us cross a number of vendors off the list, based on
the features we'd specified. Just chatting to the vendors on their
stands gave us a good overview - it was a useful on the spot test
of what they could offer. It was here that we met Access."
Birmingham Airport undertook a rigorous selection process where
each of the shortlisted suppliers had to demonstrate their systems
by following a 100+ page script that covered the main Birmingham
Airport business process. Wayne comments, "It was important that
our users saw the day-to-day processes being demonstrated rather
than a flashy marketing presentation that bore little resemblance
to what they would have to use on a daily basis."
Access' solution was evaluated against a number of other
systems, including Sage, Agresso, Coda, Exchequer, Navision and
SunSystems. Access Dimensions and
FocalPoint came out on top and in August 2005, Birmingham
Airport selected Access' solution.
An integrated solution to fix Birmingham Airport's
problems
Access proposed an integrated solution incorporating Access Dimensions, FocalPoint, Service
Manager, Asset Manager and Invu Document Management.
By using the Access Software Developers Kit (SDK), Access were
able to integrate Dimensions with other business critical
applications such as the Airport Information System (AIS).
Purchasing
One of the key requirements of the system, over and above
general financials, was in the area of purchasing. Birmingham
Airport needed both buyers and requisitioners to be able to place
orders on the system. Using FocalPoint, all users are now able to
raise a requisition by logging in via a web browser. This
provides an easy-to-use interface for raising requisitions which
are routed through a pre-defined work flow for authorisation.
FocalPoint seamlessly integrates with Dimensions to create an order
once approval has been granted. Equally, all buyers have the
ability to use FocalPoint for requisitions, and in addition, they
can raise orders directly from Access Dimensions if required.
With a combination of FocalPoint, Dimensions' Purchase Control
module and Orbis TaskCentre,
authorisation of purchase orders and purchase requisitions is
provided using Microsoft Outlook. The user does not need
to be logged into Dimensions, but instead they are routed to
FocalPoint via a link provided in the email notification.
Birmingham Airport also needed all of the standard features of a
corporate Purchasing
System. Dimensions allows users to see, at a glance, quantities
ordered and delivered, check that purchase invoices are correctly
priced and print goods received notes. The system calculates
re-order quantities taking into account minimum and maximum stock
levels and existing sales and purchase orders. A report shows
the value of goods received but not invoiced (and vice versa) so it
is possible to accrue for commitments. A user can allocate purchase
orders to a specific project and the committed costs of that
project are updated automatically within the costing module.
The FocalPoint solution offers very tight integration with
Dimensions and is allowing Birmingham Airport to control costs and
approval of orders throughout the company. Wayne makes the point
that "Although Birmingham Airport is using standard FocalPoint, it
is branded to appear as part of Birmingham Airport's internal
intranet system. This, coupled with automated logon via NT
Authentication, makes the end-user's experience much more simple.
They see FocalPoint as an extension of our internal system rather
than a new product that they have to learn."
We asked Birmingham Airport why they chose Access for their
system implementation. "A key factor was Access' own FocalPoint
solution which was not only very user-friendly, but we could see
straight away that it would achieve our aims of cost control and
approvals. Having their own range of products, their role as
Access' only Source Code Partner, plus a team of experienced
consultants, we could see the extent of Access' capabilities.
We felt confident that Access could provide the whole solution for
us and they were a company we could work with."
The implementation process
The system implementation took around four months in response to
tight timescales required by Birmingham Airport. The implementation
process went very smoothly, partly due to Birmingham Airport having
strong project management skills and a small but dedicated team of
focused staff, coupled with the previous experience of Access.
Crucially, the project was achieved on time and within budget.
Rob Parkinson, Director
at Access comments: "The implementation of FocalPoint and
Dimensions was carried out on time to a short and demanding
timescale. Using a workshop-based approach, Access was able to add
additional functionality to FocalPoint to meet the requirements for
a Phase 1 Go Live. All 150 users of the system were trained by
Access in bespoke classroom-style training sessions that
enabled a smooth transition into the new system."
The system is now used by all types and levels of staff
including the finance team, general requisitioners for raising
purchase orders, as well as managers and project managers for tasks
including approving purchase orders, viewing scanned images of
invoice and approving invoices.
Looking to the future
Plans going forward include development of FocalPoint, further
work with the document management
element of the project, plus additional training on Crystal for the
team.
Like many things, doing the best job relies on having the right tools. But how can you be sure what your team’s got what it needs? This guide takes you through what’s on offer so that you can help everyone from FC to credit controller work as one towards your operational goals.
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