The City of Ottawa has completed the implementation of a new "management information backbone" that streamlines and harmonizes its key business processes and information.
Over a three-year period, IBM Canada Ltd. deployed and delivered the new system that harnesses business software from leading ERP software vendor SAP AG.
SAP applications enable Ottawa to integrate crucial financial, HR, asset and work-management information into a single repository for simplified management, operational support and decision-making.
The fourth largest metropolis in Canada, the new City of Ottawa was created in 2001. The city's immediate goal was to consolidate and integrate services, structures and technologies of its 12 original organizations so they functioned as one.
The city estimated the new system would generate significant savings and other benefits, mainly from a new municipal structure and organizational framework, and service delivery enhancements.
A rigorous program was put in place to track the payoff and by 2009, the city expects to realize all of the anticipated benefits.
Benefits that have realized include:
B7 Managers and employees spending less time producing reports;
B7 Quicker response to inquiries;
B7 Process and productivity efficiencies within operations;
B7 All employees paid through one payroll system; and
B7 One consolidated inventory of all of the city's real property holdings
The project was successfully delivered on time and on budget, according to Kent Kirkpatrick, City Manager. "This was more than just the integration of technology. It was the harmonization of systems and business processes in a way that enables us to continue to deliver the high-quality, reliable services that all the citizens of Ottawa expect of us," Kirkpatrick said in a statement.
To date, nearly 1,500 city employees have been trained to work with the new solution.
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