If At First You Don’t Succeed with a Microsoft Dynamics AX “Go Live”, Try, Try Again

What happens when real-world upheavals occur just as you are about to implement a Go-Live to Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0?

In the case of Cole Hersee Co., a Boston maker of electrical switches, the decision was to put off a plan to Go Live, so as to ensure the upheaval was dealt with first. We described Cole Hersee's previous plans to go live in an article last spring. At an AX User Group session for New England last week, Cole Hersee's officials shared their experiences attempting to Go Live, and then deciding to delay.

As the Go Live drew near, company officials realized that going live with AX 4.0 might create more problems than it would solve. For one thing,the Go Live event required 80 or so company users to give up a system in use for twenty years at Cole Hersee. Employees had customized it to their particular applications.  "Using AX isn't a matter of pulling a switch," says Don Mayer, a vice president.

A bigger issue, though, concerned problems integrating the company's Mexican operations. There were returns and a resulting overstock of certain items.  "If we cannot handle this efficiently, we create big problems," according to Mayer.

The company had staged a number of "mock Go-Live events," says Mayer. He and other top executives concluded, "We could have struggled for a month and made it work." But the risk of alienating important customers was too great, and the company made the tough decision to put the entire matter on hold.

The new Go Live is now tentatively scheduled for this June.  And there's been a surprise ...