(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| J.D. Edwards to Improve ERP Product Quality
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September 17, 1998 (TOKYO) -- J.D. Edwards Japan KK said it dramatically
improved the quality of the latest version of its enterprise resource
planning (ERP) package, "OneWorld."
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It made the announcement during a strategic conference held with its
business partners on Sept. 1. The company also announced its commitment
to continually strengthen its support capability for partners and users.
During the conference, company President Nobuhiro Hara explained to the
partners that the firm thoroughly reviewed product quality and support
capability of OneWorld Version7.3.2.1. He said the partners could rely
on his company and concentrate on aggressively selling and supporting
the product. Ver.7.3.2.1 shipped on July 13 in the United States and
on July 25 in Japan.
Nikkei Computer magazine's July 20 issue reported that OneWorld Ver.7.3.1.1
had some quality problems, and insufficient support of J.D. Edwards
Japan was causing some troubles with user installations.
J.D. Edwards of the United States formed a quality improvement project
in March 1998 involving its engineers to solve the quality issue. J.D.
Edwards Japan joined the project to better the Japanese version.
"We have put all our efforts into product improvement, not into new feature
additions, for Ver.7.3.2.1. We believe that this version has perfect
quality now," said Hara.
J.D. Edwards Japan established its "Japan lab" in February in the U.S.
parent company's facility. It has 20 Japanese engineers and a server
system with a Japanese environment. The lab has been testing and debugging
Ver.7.3.2.1 since March 1998.
The test was not only for Japanese language capability of the product,
but also for overall OneWorld functions expected to be used in the business
processes of Japanese enterprises. This was done in three phases: analysis
of basic job flows, detailed logic flows and actual job testing.
When some problems occurred, the Japan lab engineers directly reported
to responsible U.S. engineers for resolution. Japanese engineers are
also the members of the quality improvement project of the United States
so that they could know what portions of OneWorld were improved prior
to testing.
The project lasted until the end of June. Hara said, "We could establish
a pipe between the Japan lab engineers and the U.S. engineers for easy
trouble escalation and quick problem resolution for Ver.7.3.2.1."
In Japan, 15 companies have already introduced Ver.7.3.2.1 and are now
customizing it. They will gradually start promotion operations from
the end of October. Approximately 50 companies have made OneWorld contracts,
and they will install Ver.7.3.2.1 in rapid succession.
J.D. Edwards Japan reinforced its support capability for customers and
business partners to cope with users' system operation and system development,
expected to occur late this year.
"We have also improved our consulting skills and a call center system
to cope with questions on installation-related matters like parameters
setup. We would like to publish appropriate installation guidelines
in the near future," Hara said.
(Nikkei Computer)
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