EBS R12 Implementation Lead and Design Assurance
- Joined as Technical Lead to implement R12 within an Oracle Managed Cloud Services (OMCS) environment across Balfour Beatty Group.
- Implementation of HRMS, Payroll, Projects, Financials, Procurement;
- 6 custom applications to deliver to support Balfour’s Engineering & Construction requirements – delivered through a blended onshore / offshore delivery model with multiple SI partners.
- Internal / External Integration via SOA Web Services;
- End-state user community of 8,000 users.
- Role rapidly expanded to encompass CEMLI development management; environment planning and management; build & release planning and oversight of data migration activities.
- Significant achievements included:
- Successful delivery of 3 waves (into live) since joining, each bringing additional operating companies onto the integrated R12 platform with additional CEMLIs delivered.
- Central point of contact for working with OMCS. Defining & agreeing service delivery in technology areas unfamiliar to the OMCS service:
- IPM (Image Process Management); OFR (Oracle Forms Recognition)
- Implemented an on-shore technical capability within the programme to provide support and guidance to Balfour’s SI partners and to manage and make effective the relationship between the SI and Balfour’s internal IT Shared Service organisation.
- Implemented agile internal development and release processes across programme environments.
- Engagement with the internal IT functions of the individual operating companies to work on infrastructure and deployment requirements. Management and tracking of these activities.
- Responsibility for defining the programme environment strategy; Responsibility for executing the strategy utilising 150+ servers both within Balfour and OMCS covering E-Business Suite, OBIEE, SOA, IPM (Image Process Management), OFR (Oracle Forms Recognition), IDM and 3rd party products on OMCS infrastructure.
- Following the engagement of TechMahindra as the single preferred SI (starting August 2013), moved into a technical assurance role:
- Defining assurance processes and policies for the SI partner to work with and adhere to; Tracking SI partner activities against assurance policies, advising remedial actions, escalating to programme management where required.
- Working with the existing internal IT organisation to improve internal QA procedures and ready the support organisation for future go-lives by advising on approaches to implementing proactive monitoring of EBS. Implemented TOAD Code Expert to automate PL/SQL code reviews.
- Leading and managing performance testing initiatives on the R12 programme (leveraging Oracle Application Testing Suite (OATS).
- Retained responsibility for Infrastructure and Security Management requirements and issues - working with the wider IT organisation and 3rd parties to have these addressed.
- During cutover:
- Assured the technical cutover of more than 1000 release packs into Production environment (Sept 2014)
- Central point of contact for all technical issues – available 24 hours a day; working with OMCS to ensure environment stability during data migration into the live environment
- Post cutover:
- Implemented a performance management framework, defining the metrics to be collated, the tools and processes to be used to analyse. Leveraging my expertise in PL/SQL and SQL performance tuning I delivered 20+ improvements resulting in system load down 70% and individual performance improvements of upto 100x.
- Advised on architectural simplifications. Delivered a white paper detailing annual cost savings of up to £600k/yr.