Science and Engineering worried about new software system
Science and Engineering worried about new software system
Door Giulia Fabrizi
By Giulia Fabrizi
The board says there are still many questions about the practical use of the system that remain unanswered. This means it’s unclear whether certain elements that are of crucial importance to the faculty actually work properly. Employees have also not been informed properly of how to perform their FSE-specific tasks come January.
‘For this, we need a beta release allowing us to test run the system for a few months, and we’ve not had that’, says managing director Dick Veldhuis.
Three weeks ago, Veldhuis announced his worries to the university’s board of directors. ‘But we’ve not received any valid answers to our concerns, apart from the fact that people are confident that everything will work out.’ In spite of the uncertainties, the board decided last week to proceed with the planned BP2020 launch.
Faculty concerns
The faculty concerns focus on various aspects of the new software system that will replace the current separate software packages for HR, payroll, finances, and projects on January 1.
‘We process a lot of orders at this faculty, and no one can tell me for sure that we’ll be able to place them’, says Veldhuis when asked for an example of the faculty’s concerns.
If they can’t place orders and deliveries are delayed, the faculty’s research department will suffer the consequences. ‘Postponed research costs money.’
Tens of millions
Another point of concern is project execution. ‘This faculty really depends on project execution. It costs us tens of million and we need a good structural basis so our project leaders, the professors, know what’s going on. But I still have no proper insight into how the system works in that regard and whether the overview it gives is understandable.’
Veldhuis understands the previous system needed replacing but doesn’t understand why no one’s taken the time to test whether the new one works.
‘A few years ago, we implemented ISP, a new purchasing system. We did a test run for several months at a few institutes before implementing it across the faculty. That’s proper preparation and testing. And that was just for a purchasing system.’