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by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | Companies embarking upon a global technology strategy are finding they need the knowledge and expertise of both manufacturing and IT staffs. But creating a blended manufacturing-IT team requires the not-so-easy task of cultural change. |
Sarah Mather has a background as a financial analyst with an undergraduate degree in economics and a master's degree in public health. But as the vice president of business systems and administration at Fusion UV Systems Inc., a maker of industrial ultraviolet lamp systems, she's in charge of the IT group and the human resources department. An odd mix of responsibilities, indeed. She was drawn into HR because of that department's need for data analysis. Since no one in HR knew anything about technology, Mather was picked to implement a human resources information system (HRIS). Soon thereafter, the company decided to move from older ERP systems that ran on separate databases for European and U.S. operations to a single instance of SAP AG (Walldorf, Germany), which would be located in the company's Gaithersburg, MD, headquarters. At the time, Mather was in HR, but she took charge of that IT deployment, too. "The reason I was in charge of the ERP implementation was because our corporate management acknowledged that a successful implementation is a people issue," Mather says. "It's getting people to work together effectively and getting them to listen to each other." [Click to continue] |