Analysis of Geneva Steel's Enterprise Information System: Case Study

This case study examines the enterprise information system (EIS) of Geneva Steel, a steel mill in Utah, focusing on its transition to SAP. The report begins with an executive summary, highlighting the company's problems with its legacy systems, including data integration issues, inefficient reporting, and poor customer communication. The study then delves into the business, technology, and business process rationale behind Geneva Steel's decision to implement SAP, aiming to streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. The analysis further explores the advantages and disadvantages of SAP implementation, particularly concerning cultural changes within the organization. The report concludes by assessing Geneva Steel's current position and emphasizing the importance of SAP implementation for manufacturing industries, especially within the steel sector. The assignment fulfills the requirements of a BUS5EIS course case study, including an executive summary and detailed answers to specific questions regarding Geneva Steel's EIS and SAP implementation strategy.

Running head: ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
Enterprise Information System of Geneva Steel
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
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1ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
Executive Summary
The following report focuses on the enterprise information system of the Geneva Steel Plant.
The Geneva Steel Plant is situated in Utah and is the only steel industry aligning IT with its
business process. The company first comprised of more than 2400 employees. About 75% of
the production of the company mainly focuses on producing sheet and steel plate while the
rest of the percentage comprises of production of pipes and coils. Before the implementation
of Enterprise Resource Planning system, the company of Geneva steel used to process their
business with the help of different computers consisting of different software based on the
requirement of the business. The systems that are being implemented in the company, are
used to generate reports of three different types such as operational report, daily operational
report and daily reports for operation. For the managers of the company, it was hard to
analyze all these reports daily and to keep a track of all the orders that are done by the
customers. In measure to solve all these issues the company of Geneva steel plant decided to
process with business process re-engineering and meanwhile started the Delta Project. The
aim of the delta project is to affect the systematic procedure of the business process of
Geneva Steel Plant with respect to the corporate system. The main target of the company is
to reduce the cost by 20% as compared to the cost in the year 1996. The business of Geneva
company mainly focused on the on-time delivery and fulfillment of the orders by maintaining
accuracy, reduced customer complaint, and yielding the manufacturing limit with inventory
levels and products. As a measure to bring about everything under one single platform, the
Geneva Steel Company decided to implement the SAP in its business process. The
expectation of the company from SAP implementation were fewer based on the hardware and
software requirements, analyzing all the daily reports together, accessing information without
hassle, making decisions while vigorously analyzing the data, to create a strong bond
between the information system and the accounting field of the business and many more. As

2ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
a result of the implementation of SAP in the integration of the accounting functions, about 80
to 12 staffs may lead to drop in the information technology. The entire project cost estimation
for the implementation of SAP was between $8 million to $10 million dollars. The people of
the organisation were very much reluctant to accept the changing scenario of the company
culture butt the organisation was firm enough in its place to implement the SAP in its
business process. The following report is prepared to discuss about the detailed history of the
company of Geneva steel and its different problems in the legacy system including
management of information system and enhancing customer satisfaction. The report focuses
on the different strategies that the company took with respect to its business rationale,
technological rationale and business process rationales. Based on this rationale the company
decided to implement SAP in its business process. The report reflects the different advantages
and disadvantages that are faced while implanting SAP in the organisation. The last part of
the report focuses on the current position of the Geneva steel company and hence concludes
with the importance of SAP implementation in manufacturing industries especially in steel
industries.

3ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................4
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................5
Problems that Geneva have with their legacy system:...........................................................5
Business, technology, rationale for Geneva to undertake SAP implementation:..................7
Business process rationale/ reasons for Geneva to undertake SAP implementation:............9
Advantages and disadvantages of SAP implementation in the culture of Geneva:...............9
Current position of Geneva Steel:........................................................................................10
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................11

4ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
Introduction:
Geneva Steel is one of the integrated steel mills located in Vineyard, Utah on the west
of the Mississippi River. The steel company started in the year 1998. The Geneva steel
company was born out of necessity in a time of war. The plant represented the pinnacle of an
industrial era that was spent. The major customer base of the Geneva steel company was
developed in the western part and to the central of the United States. Geneva steel used to sell
its products to different service centers and distributors of steel. About three fourth of the
sales of Geneva consists of sheet and plant steel and the rest of the sales included coils and
pipes. Geneva steel used to produce cut -to- length plates that are used in the manufacturing
process of the ships, various industrial equipment and barges. The steel plate that Geneva
used to produce is also used in the construction of wide range of products which includes
buildings, roads, bridges and many more (Taniguchi 2018). The Geneva Steel plant is one of
the largest construction projects under the government of United States that was developed
during the era of World War II. During the world war II, the Geneva Steel plant was
responsible for constructing more than 2000 class liberty ships which were designed to
deliver food, ammunitions and clothes overseas (Gajdzik and Sitko 2014). The Geneva Steel
plant was mainly focused on producing hot-rolled steel sheets and a variety of construction
materials that were needed as a part of the war effort. The company was also responsible for
producing non-steel materials and semi-finished slabs which are formed from the by-products
of the operations of steel making procedure. But soon after the mill operation got under the
way, after the world war, the federal government of United States started bidding for the
plant. The steel company started modernizing the plant by implementing new technological
procedures in its existing outdated technologies (Kaiser 2018). The operation cost of the
Geneva Steel Plant was also thoroughly scrutinized and the existing backdated equipment
were also replaced in terms to avoid the main problem that raised in the company which is

5ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
the future liability of pollution. The overall culture of Geneva is similar to that of a traditional
steel mill. The Geneva Steel plant has the widest and thickest plate cutting and levelling line
which are used to facilitate the generation of products. The steel company of Geneva adopted
various programs in order to modernize the plant with new mill operations after the company
went down (Carter 2014). The prevailing technology of the company was outdated and the
operating costs needs to be carefully scrutinized. As a measure to it, the company started
replacing its equipments with new facilities. The following report will discuss about the
various technological implementation initiatives that the Geneva Steel Company undertook
and one of the main implementations is the introduction of SAP in its business process.
Discussion:
Problems that Geneva have with their legacy system:
1. The Steel plant of Geneva have various problems related to the legacy system of the plant.
The information system that the Geneva Steel Plant have evolved over time to time including
a number of assorted systems. This gave rise to a situation of one system with many software
and thus integrating the information and accessing them became difficult. According to
report, the company have a mainframe and a major accounting system. The company have
large numbers of computers running on different software and thus managing information
from these systems becomes difficult. Also this problem gives rise to slowing down of
computers as a result of which the systems cannot provide necessary data when it is required.
2. Another issue that Geneva Steel Plant have with their information system is that though the
current system of information generates a considerable amount of data related to transaction,
but still most of the data remains unavailable from the transaction system. The information
system of Geneva generates several datapoints but they remain inaccessible to the company
as they are not integrated with each other.

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3. One of the main issues that is faced with the legacy system is that the prevalent
information system of the firm yields three different types of report consisting of operational
report, sales report and reports related to accounting and shipment details. These reports are
generated in a daily basis also known as the Daily operational report or the DOR. Thus, it
becomes very difficult to analyze those reports collectively. One relief in this context is that
the reports are generated via email so the official do not have to go through bunch of papers
every day but the issue related to analysis remains the same in this case. As different data are
produced in different reports it becomes impossible for the company to generate important
information that would be beneficial for the company in terms of generating daily operational
needs for the company’s business growth.
4. The legacy system of the Geneva Steel Plant does not provide necessary knowledge related
to the customers and their orders. As a result of which the company officials remain unaware
of the costs related to the hot metal that are being used for a particular customer demand. The
representatives inside the sales team of the Geneva steel company often face difficulty in
figuring out the orders and their particular needs as demanded by the customers from the data
provided by the information system about the customers and their orders.
5. Focusing on communication with customers is an important aspect for any business
organization in terms of gaining the long-term successes. In any company’s early stage, it is
important to have an effective communication with its customers in order to ensure that the
products and services that are offered and delivered exactly meets with the immediate
demands of the customers. Regular communication with the customers allows the company
to adopt and grow in the market position meeting its requirements. The information system of
Geneva Steel plant also lacks in providing proper communication with the customers
(Haddara and Elragal 2015). Customers often do not get notified about the status of their
orders about the quality and the time when the order will get delivered. This also affects the

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business process of the company as the it lacks communication with the customers as well as
with the officials internally.
6. The current integration process that the information system of Geneva Steel Company
provides is mainly based on mental work. Thus, it becomes a critical part in order to manage t
the jobs (Henningsson Kude and Popp 2016). The managers have to play the role of the
integrators besides looking and analyzing the reports of the operation, sales and accounting in
a daily basis. As the whole integration process mainly works by mental calculation hence it
becomes difficult for the managers to execute a business plan where they have to constantly
struggle with the integration of the information collected from the information system.
7. The last but not the least the legacy issue that is faced with information system of Geneva
Steel Company is that it does not provide any interface between the feeding and care of a
program between users and other programs. Also, the company comprises of limited number
of people who are aware of technology and other specific applications. Only a few numbers
of accountants have the knowledge to understand the programs and information that are
required for the use of the data analysis.
Business, technology, rationale for Geneva to undertake SAP implementation:
SAP implementation: SAP or system application and product implementation is defined as a
method that is carried out in order to implement the enterprise resource planning software in
any business organisation (Hustad Haddara and Kalvenes 2016). The implementation of SAP
is described as a method based on the practices that are done based on the collection of the
products and processes that creates the entire implementation method allowing the
organisation to plan and execute the SAP software. In the implementation of SAP software,
almost every people of the organisation are involved virtually as the end users of the SAP

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software (Maes Van Grembergen and De Haes 2014). The general rationales for which
organisations are implementing SAP within their business system are-
1. To improve the performance of the business.
2. To allow the employees to do their job in a much easier way.
3. To integrate the systems across multiple locations
4. To ensure the reporting system that is analyzing the reports that are generated daily.
5. To replace the old Enterprise resource planning of the system or the legacy system
6. To help in the growth of the organization
7. To serve the customers better and generate better customer satisfaction through the
orders as demanded by them.
8. To standardize the business operation globally
9. To reduce the capital or the cost that is invested in the daily working of the company
(Heinzelmann 2017).
10. To stand out in the global market between various competitors.
While implementing SAP in a steel industry, some checklists needs to be followed which
includes-
1. Company wide integration- This has to be the main criteria that needs to be satisfied
while planning any SAP implementation within the organisation of any steel
company. Integrated ERP software system helps a steel company to have an
integrated and streamlined operation (Mitra Debnath and Sebastian 2014).
2. Multiple planning- The production process of any steel industry undergoes through
various planning strategies which needs to be well addressed before implementing
any SAP ERP system within the organisation (Umar et al. 2016).

9ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
Business rationale for Geneva to undertake SAP implementation: This includes gaining
of pervasive change in the systematic behavior of the business in comparison to the corporate
systems, structures and processes. The main reason for the company to implement SAP in
their business is to reduce the cost by 20% in comparison to the cost that was estimated in the
year 1996 from the Delta project. The main aim of the business of the Geneva Steel plant is
to launch several teams that focused on improving the employee relation, operation and
customer services of the business (Govindaraj and Putra 2016). According to the officials of
the Geneva steel pant this change is vital in order to compete in the current steel market.
Identifying this business rationales, the company finally decided to implement ERP system
within their business process.
Technological rationale of Geneva to undertake SAP implementation: The technological
reason for Geneva to implement SAP in the business is that the implementation of SAP will
help them decrease the application of the prevailing legacy system which is not so much
beneficial from 50% to 90% (Bintoro et al 2015). The prevailing legacy system of the
company did not capture information that is required to allow measurement of each metrices
accurately (Yahya et al. 2018). The requirement of the technological hardware and software
would be less in the implementation of the SAP as it would be fully integrated (Kauppila
Härkönen and Väyrynen 2015). Thus, this will serve the purpose of the company in reducing
the overall cost of the firm. Also, another technological rationale for Geneva is that the
introduction of SAP will help in providing a much more robust and integrated method for
calculating and analyzing the reports that are obtained in a daily basis (Anaya 2014). As the
SAP is an integrated tool hence it will be self-executing and no such extra technological
requirements will be necessary for its implementation. The SAP implementation would
enable information tyo be easily available to the customers both internally and externally
helping the business to know the need of the customers (Pattanayak and 2015). This

10ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
technological reason behind implementing SAP is also that it will help in generating more
strategic information and hence will help in making more improved decision making,
accessing data and increased ability to perform analysis between different groups of data. The
implementation of the SAP in the technological procedure of the company will help in the
integration process where managers will no longer be acting as the integrators of information.
Business process rationale/ reasons for Geneva to undertake SAP
implementation:
Continuous changes were taking place in the company of Geneva steel as it flourishes in the
financial market. After executing the delta project, the executives of the plant felt the urge of
improving their plant operation. On June 1997, Geneva steel company decided to announce a
responsibility of management among the senior executives of the company. They wanted to
implement changes in the business process by focusing on resources which have the potential
of yielding the beneficial improvements to the company (Kabak et al. 2016). The changes
that the company intended to be done in the business process includes change in the
relationship in the company to reflect the commitment of the company to focus on the
implementation of the strategic plan towards introducing SAP in the organization (Khaparde
and Khaparde 2016). So as a measure to it, the staffs of the company were reduced from 155
to 92. Besides these reasons, the business process rationales that Geneva developed from the
Delta project includes the following metrices which includes-
1. On time delivery
2. Fulfillment of the order with accuracy
3. Improving the manufacturing cost per ton
4. Improving the administrative costs per ton

11ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF GENEVA STEEL
5. Reducing customer complaints
6. Improving the yield of the manufacturing activity
7. Improving the status of the inventory level and product.
Above all these concerns the main aim of the business process of Geneva steel company
included customer satisfaction (Conteh and Akhtar 2015). Customer satisfaction is a vital
component for every business in order to provide the marketers with a metrics that can be
used in business to measure and improve the business process. For increasing this
metrics, the company felt the urge for implementing customer integration tool in order to
address the necessary changes in the organization behaviors. The customer data
integration tool that the business thought of implementing will hence help in managing
and consolidating the information of the customers across the organisation. This will
benefit the company of Geneva to achieve a single version of truth by acquiring its
customers data.
Advantages and disadvantages of SAP implementation in the culture of Geneva:
The company of Geneva steel implemented its SAP software within their business
system with an expectation that the implementation of SAP will help them in inheriting the
mainframe legacy system. The entire project costed to around $8 to $10 million dollar. The
implementation of the entire AP system completed in the year 1999. Several advantages and
disadvantages are noted by the company after the implementation of the SAP system.
Advantages:
The implementation of ERP is divided into three phases namely discovery phase,
implementation phase and the resulting phase. The implementation of SAP in organisation
process offers the benefits like it increases the competition power of the organization among
various industries in the market (Zare and Ravasan 2014). It is true that implementing ERP