Movex system delayed

By ADAM GIFFORD

Plastics manufacturer Vertex has delayed the go-live date of its new Movex enterprise resource planning software for four months because of data conversion and reporting issues.

The former Carter Holt Harvey subsidiary will continue to rent SAP applications from Oxygen Solutions until November 1.

The new system from Swedish firm Intentia was due to go live yesterday - the same day Vertex listed on the stock exchange - after a nine-month implementation.

Chief information officer Dee Ankersmit said Vertex was a larger and more complex company than most of Intentia's other New Zealand sites.

"We needed more resources than we thought."

The task of converting historical data from SAP had proved bigger than expected.

Ankersmit said Vertex was trying to avoid customising the software, but had modified aspects of the purchase-to-payment process to match some of the control SAP gave.

It was also implementing the Movex business warehousing module, so it could get back some of the reporting strength it will lose by moving off SAP Financials.

"Intentia here did not have the expertise in that module," Ankersmit said, "and it is quite a big area to get pinned down."