Seven Seas Water (AquaVenture) Upgrade to IFS Applications 9
About The Company
Seven Seas Water, (an AquaVenture Company) provides reliable solutions that address the challenge of water resource management by providing alternative water supplies and tackling water inefficiencies for municipal, industrial and commercial clients. While population, industry and urbanization compete for the world's most precious natural resource, Seven Seas Water’s smart business approach ensures that dependable, low-cost and sustainable solutions are accessible to the largest consumers of water. Seven Seas Water’s reliable water solutions address the many challenges customers face regarding water production or water treatment, and their commitment to help customers succeed is clear in their approach.
Delivering Water-as-a-Service™ (WAAS) means that they provide customers with all-inclusive custom desalination, advanced wastewater treatment, water recycling and water reuse services at an affordable, guaranteed cost. Requiring limited up-front capital from customers, Seven Seas Water designs, builds, owns and operates dedicated facilities for municipalities, industry and large commercial businesses. WAAS aligns the interests of the customer with Seven Seas Water because the success of both depends on a consistent and affordable water supply.
Project Background
Seven Seas Water chose IFS Applications as the backbone of their ERP needs in 2007, starting with the Florida facility and adding additional facilities as they were acquired. Seven Seas Water went live on IFS Applications 7.0 following the initial Implementation. The company then upgraded to IFS Applications 7.5 in 2011. In February of 2018, having worked well with Enterprise Consulting on several IFS Applications 7.5 optimization projects, Seven Seas Water approached Enterprise Consulting to begin the process of defining, budgeting, and executing an IFS Applications 10 Upgrade.
The Problem
There were several drivers behind Seven Seas Water’s desire to Upgrade IFS Applications 7.5. Among those drivers were: age and risk of a now unsupported Microsoft infrastructure, escalating platform maintenance costs, new functional requirements due to acquisitions, and the proliferation of modifications to IFS Applications 7.5.
The Solution
Enterprise Consulting worked with Seven Seas Water to review resourcing (what Seven Seas Water resources were available and capable of doing which tasks and which would need to be completed by Enterprise Consulting resources), scheduling, and budgetary costs. Enterprise Consulting conducted an IFS Upgrade Project Definition (pre-study). The Project Definition included several tasks including infrastructure analysis, database copies, questionnaires to provide plan insights, and a review of modifications to determine which can be eliminated by new core functionality versus which would need to be uplifted again. Upon completion of the pre-study activities, a fully budgeted project plan was developed and accepted by Seven Seas Water, and the upgrade from IFS Applications 7.5 to IFS Applications 9 was kicked off in April of 2018.
Throughout the project, which was comprised of mostly technical events (upgrade passes, report and integration uplifts and non-eliminated mod uplifts) the project stayed on schedule and under budget by means of strong project management by both Enterprise Consulting and Seven Seas Water, and the impact of a regular steering committee cadence. At the appropriate point in the project, IFS gap training was delivered. Gap training covers the new functionality in existing and owned IFS modules that comes with the new version of IFS, and covers any new modules added to Seven Seas Water’s IFS Applications configuration.
The Result
In November of 2018, Seven Seas Water went live on IFS Applications 9, Update 10. The original project drivers were all successfully addressed by the upgrade: stable infrastructure and platform, reduced overall IT maintenance costs, new and improved functionality for current and future facilities and business lines, and the elimination of all but two existing IFS Applications modifications. All of this was delivered on time and under budget by Enterprise Consulting.
