order. In most instances, the missing items had arrived at the dock late, due to system problems, and they were then put on a follow-up truck. Customers saw service quality deteriorate, as they did not receive invoiced items when the original shipment arrived. The customers called FoxMeyer’s customer service, which ordered the missing items and shipped the items the following day. Later, the missing items would arrive on trucks. The result was that when the shipment of missing items ordered by customer service arrived the next day, many customers had received many duplicate items. However, because the SAP inventory system produced accurate bills based only on the order, customers were not billed for the duplicate deliveries. (Caldwell, 1998) The expected result was that many of the customers did not bother reporting the extra deliveries. The enormity of the duplicate orders was not clear until inventory, but the problem led to huge loses to FoxMeyer. The company was forced to announce a $34 million charge to cover the non-collectible losses from customer orders. The fact was that the company did not know to whom the duplicate orders were sent or what was the content of those orders.The most serious reason why the system was dysfunctional can be seen in FoxMeyer’s management of the project. Their implementation of the project entailed a top-down approach, whereby management, Andersen Consulting and few technical people planned and implemented the project right from the outset. User participation was not solicited and client participation was missing. Few end users participated in the analysis, design and implementation of the system. Therefore, the communication gap that developed between users and system personnel was predictable.The lack of all departments’ involvement in the project left workers threatened by the implementation of the system, particularly at the warehouse level. The workers had zero i...
