“We are trying to find that sweet spot in the middle, which we call optimised or reliability-centred maintenance”īut picking Infor left First Bus with the task of integrating it with its main SAP system. “It would have cost us more in labour resources to capture data, while Infor was tailored and more bespoke towards our kind of operation.” “When you look at it from an end-user perspective, you have to compare how you would bring it into the business – what resources you would have to deploy to get the best from the system,” says Warr. But the idea that maintenance management could be rolled into the enterprise upgrade to SAP Hana hit some barriers.ĭespite the logic of using a single platform for ERP and asset management, analysis from Warr’s team showed it would cost more to develop a user interface for SAP Hana that worked in the First Bus business than adopt a specialist asset management system from Infor and integrate it with SAP. Its legacy maintenance systems include an application from Atos, SAP R/3, and other disparate systems. In planning this move, Warr was tasked with modernising the UK bus business’s maintenance systems. In May 2019, the company announced that it would, through a sale or other form of divestment, separate First Bus from FirstGroup. It runs diesel, electric, hybrid, hydrogen and gas buses, as well as ancillary vehicles. “So obviously, it seemed reasonable and natural ⁠– and also was the chief executive’s view – that we should integrate maintenance within that platform.”įirst Bus owns about 5,500 vehicles in the UK and operates one-fifth of all local bus services outside London. “We were just embarking on an SAP Hana upgrade of our enterprise platform,” says Warr. Instead of going with its enterprise resource planning ( ERP) supplier, First Bus opted for technology from Infor, in a move that commentators say signals the ease at which businesses can take a pick-and-mix approach to enterprise application strategy. “It was a really hard sell to say ‘no’,” says Ian Warr, UK engineering director at First Bus. When UK bus company First Bus, part of global transport company FirstGroup, decided to upgrade its asset management and maintenance systems, it avoided senior management’s first choice of adopting SAP, which provides its main business systems.

Infor sells eam