Hershey’s Dud

Just a few miles from TransCore’s head offices east of Harrisburg PA is one of the world’s greatest system integration fiascos. It’s nothing to do with tolling, or TransCore. It’s at the Hershey chocholate and candy plant naned after the local town - a $4b+ business. Or it used to be. They just spent $112m on a new computer system, flipped it on mid-July, and so far it is a total disaster. All over the country distributors are turning to other lines of candy because Hershey can’t get product through the new order and distribution system. (WALL ST JOURNAL 10/29/99) They didn’t stint for the very best computer people. The main software is SAP from Germany, with other code from Siebel Systems and Manugistics with IBM the integrator. There are 5,000 PCs as terminals, and network hubs. It is all designed to accelerate order processing and deliveries. Three months after the switchover orders take twice as long to process as before. Hershey has reported $100m in lost sales in the third quarter and the company’s stock is down from $75 to $50. A spokesman for system integrator IBM said the firm was “continuing to help Hershey address its business challenges.” For which it must be in the running for the year’s Oily Spokesmanship award.