Practical know-how of the Global Project

Hitoshi Goto

Ukihiko Takagi

In Part 6, we discussed methods to get along with local experts. This time, we will look at Japan's unique IT technology, which is not usual in overseas projects.

There are no engineers who can do the same add-on program development as in Japan.

Regarding to additional development of packaged software, Japan is one of the most advanced countries.

For examples of the Oracle E-Business Suite that we use frequently, we can add up to fifteen columns (DFF) to each DB table, but this is often not enough, and we can even divide each columns by "|" (pipes). This is an "additional column" (an column prepared in advance by the package so that items other than the standard columns used in the user's business can be added), so there is no problem. However, to the best of our knowledge, Japan is the only country to do so.

The chance to show the skills of Japan's ERP engineers is how well you can incorporate add-on programs into packaged software. Designers and developers have also accumulated and refined add-on program development techniques and rules for their respective packages.

However, there is a general tendency to avoid add-on program development overseas.

The first is that IT engineers job has high turnover, that is, they change jobs quickly, so that know-how about the company's unique add-on program specifications may not be handed-over.

And it is often said even in Japan, because the cost of operation and maintenance is high. If you have a major version upgrade of the ERP package, you will need to review or test the part you've added-on program.

However, ERP packages may be modified due to business reasons even in oversea. In this case, there is less add-on program development know-how, so some add-on programs might be out of rules in Japan. For example, they may apply database (DB) triggers (i.e., access the database directly) or hard code onto packages.

We call this "modify" to distinguish it from "add-on program", but it must be avoided because it is no longer covered within the package vendor's warranty.

If you want to modify the ERP package in a global project, consider that there are basically no IT engineers overseas who have the same add-on program development know-how as in Japan, and when a strong request has come, they may try to implement it in a method that is not considered in Japan. We need to establish a solid development policy.

Don't make complicated job scheduling overseas!

The automatic execution of batch jobs by the job scheduler is the same for both Japan and overseas. However, this is not the case if job scheduling is also necessary overseas, as Japanese people think.

The job schedule in Japan is precisely assembled so that each program is executed in the correct order, while making various conditional branches in detail as shown in the tree diagram. As such, it looks like a somewhat complex program, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a masterpiece.

However, such detailed job schedules are rarely created overseas. Programs are grouped in daily and weekly cycles and start times. Japanese people are concerned that there might be unexecuted process or inconsistencies in the database. However, even if such situation occurs, we should recognize that the oversea's basic idea is to raise the frequency of jobs and to find the next one.

This is not the only reason for the complexity of Japanese job schedules. Overseas, especially in the United States of America, payments are often made within 30 days of billing. In Japan, however, monthly batch processing is inevitably complicated due to the ordinary account payable closing at the end of the month, payment at the end of the following month. Monthly processing is more complicated because there are many more processing than just billing.

On the other hand, since the month-end calculation is performed for monthly accounting recording purposes at overseas, we believe that even if an error occurs, it is only necessary to repeat the calculation.

There are fundamental differences in the concept of system operation between Japan and overseas. We emphasize that anyone can operate the system without assuming the presence of a specific craftsmanship, at least overseas.

This must be taken into account when considering the operational design of a global project.

<<Read [Part 6]Read [Part 8]>>

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