New Integrated Solution Provides Major Increase in Efficiency
PARSIPPANY, NJ, December 19, 2002 - Acuent Inc., a full-service systems integrator, today announced that it has been awarded a contract to install an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for Lucas County, Ohio, which spans an area of 340 square miles in northwest Ohio and has more than 455,000 residents.
"Acuent helped us develop a strategic implementation plan and re-engineer our business processes using best practice models so as to minimize the amount of customization required," said Keith Fournier, CIO/Director of Lucas County Information Services (LCIS). "Acuent's strong government sector experience and their strategic planning services made them the best candidate for the job."
Acuent will be implementing key modules from PeopleSoft® 8 Human Resources Management (HRMS), Financial Management and Enterprise Portal to create an integrated system for payroll, benefits and accounting functions. PeopleSoft 8 applications provide advanced reporting features, expanded query capabilities and the ability to check spending against budgets in real time. They also include an Internet architecture that enables employee self-service access to human resources and financial data through a Web interface.
"Lucas County's homegrown system has served the county well for many years, however, it can no longer support the functionality and integration needed to efficiently manage operations," said Tom Ferrando, president and COO of Acuent. "Using our extensive full-service integration and strategic planning experience, we are helping Lucas County move to a state-of-the-art ERP system while incorporating the best practices defined in the county's process re-engineering efforts."
Prior to being awarded the implementation contract, Lucas County retained Acuent to develop a strategic implementation plan to transform their finance, human resource and payroll functions. This long-term plan defined an integrated strategy for business process redesign, change management, organizational development, ERP system selection and implementation and risk management. It also quantified total cost of ownership for Lucas County.
Acuent was also engaged to perform a needs assessment and provide a vendor-neutral approach to ERP system selection that allowed officials to evaluate systems capabilities and costs based on Lucas County's unique requirements. Acuent performed extensive process redesign work, defining the goals of the overall transformation effort, developing future state business processes and identifying performance measurements to track process improvements.
Lucas County is located in Northwest Ohio. The County seat is the City of Toledo. Lucas County was founded in 1835 and named after the then-Ohio Governor Robert Lucas. The County Commissioner's reside over a general fund budget of $131 million per year. Lucas County Information Services (LCIS) provides application development, client support, system acquisition, computer networking, GIS implementation/analysis, GIS outreach, website development, and server and desktop administration for 52 county agencies containing 4500 employees located throughout 30 county buildings (www.co.lucas.oh.us/lcis).
Acuent Inc., based in Parsippany, N.J., provides comprehensive services to integrate business and technology solutions for Fortune 1000 companies, institutions of higher education and the public sector. The company has more than 400 customers, including Lucas County, Ohio; Contra Costa County, Calif.; D.C. Public Schools; Exostar; Intermedia Communications; Port of Seattle; the State of Georgia; Twentieth Century Fox and the U.S. Army. Acuent has 400 employees and offices throughout the United States.