Profile

As a business/application analyst with 18 years of SAP experience and over 30 years of financial/cost management accounting, internal audit, and budgets. Experience in the automotive, chemical, computer, construction, consumer packaging, distribution, aerospace & defense, retail, manufacturing, metal, mining, pharmaceutical, and telecommunication industries background knowledge serve as a foundation in the implementation process of system requirements linked with the understanding of business requirements, processes, communication skills, and confidence as a key member on the team are my assets that help organizations reach goals.

Honda is a global manufacturer in the automotive industry. Parent operations in Japan control American, Europe, and Asia operations using multiple systems interfaced to SAP ECC FI/CO and business objects financial consolidations (BOFC). EY, IBM, and Honda needed a team lead for Controlling to coach 5- 7 consultants, and multiple Honda Associates to complete a design blueprint. Requirements gathering sessions for 12 companies in North America with consultants, Honda associates, and extended team members were held to frame the design. The team documented the project design documents (PDD) of master data, processes, and output to perform daily operations. The statement of work scope included sales and distribution modules (orders, and billing), materials management (MRO, purchase orders & material masters), account payable (LIV and A/P), New General ledger (including Profit center), cost center accounting (CCA), internal orders (I/O), Projects (WBS), and product profitability analysis (COPA). During the process of documentation a GAP analysis was completed based on the current operations. The development of report, interfaces, conversions, enhancements, forms, and workflows (RICEFW) consisted of writing functional specifications for any objects to cover the GAPS in process from legacy interfaces to custom processes in SAP. The controlling team took the responsibility of making sure integration between teams were covered in the documentation of the blueprint. The EY team was required to transfer the knowledge of the PDD’s, RICEFW, and process flows to Honda and IBM representatives which took ownership of the next phase of the operation called realization.

RioTinto is a world leader in mining and chemically processing the earth’s materials. The organization is made up of 600 companies processing the earth’s materials around the globe. Rio Tinto business solution (RTBS) is made up of a number of systems including SAP. The lead position required US corporate location coordination of people from many countries (US,FR,ES,UK,NL,RS,SG,MY), time zones and different departments/levels of the organization. As a team player I helped the consultants and financial members migrate from legacy systems to the solution. The blueprint requirement gathering sessions included New general ledger, Profit center accounting (PCA), Banks, Fixed assets (FA), A/R and A/P integration, Cost Center accounting (CCA), product costing (COPC), profitability analysis (COPA), and internal orders (COIO). Gaps were identified from sessions and functional specification were created to customize business unit specific operational conditions. Realization included data migration , baseline/final configuration and unit/integration testing. Testing scripts were complied to represent the day to day and month end activities. Testing scenarios identified defects and were logged in HPQC to be reworked. Once the defects were completed and end user acceptance testing was signed off then we moved into the final preparation stages for go-live. The final preparation stages of the implementation included conversion of master data objects, transaction conversion for in process activities, and training of the financial team on transactions. Go-live cutover include the coordination of multiple sites and support end users in processing transactions.

Bearing Distributors is a world wide distributor of bearings and other specialty items to organizations around the globe. The company wanted to design the financial template using global harmonized best practices in SAP version 6.0 all in one solution prior to rolling out SAP to the rest of the world. Coaching a group from headquarters in Cleveland Ohio, and interfacing with controllers and consultants around the world to design a model to be rolled out to the entire organization. The scope of the project included blue printing new general ledger (New G/L), A/R, A/P, credit management (CM), banking, cost/profit center accounting (PCA/CCA), internal orders (I/O), and profitability analysis (COPA) along with the integration of SD, MM, PP, WM, and IM. Discovery sessions of each country uncovered different legacy systems and local legal considerations which required mapping to one instance for consolidation purposes. The vision of the company was to use SAP to service the customer from any location seamlessly, and allow the transaction processing to flow for legal and managerial reporting. The next phase of realization was handed over to the Europe intelligence consultants and BDI employees in Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, and Czech Republic.

Fisker Automotive is the world's first luxury plug-in premium green hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The organization installed the SAP ECC 6.0 ALL in One rapid implementation. As COPA lead working with consultants, developers, and team members to install controlling profitability analysis (COPA). Variant configuration of the vehicle management system (VMS) was used to take orders from the car dealers, and integrated with IS-automotive solution including vehicle sales, service parts, and warranty. The organization wanted to know profit margins at cost objects (material, assembly fee, incremental cost, overheads) below the car VIN number level. Requirement gathering sessions were held to document the business blueprint. The blueprint lead to the configuration, system gap development objects, and unit testing of the business processes The custom characteristic and five way spilt of value field (cost objects) requirements were functionally specked to use user enhancements(COPA0001/5) to derive the field s and amounts during the billing process. Configuration of the operating concern integrated with user enhancements (SMOD) allowed the organization to view each sales line profitability with a multiple dimension characteristic analysis. COPA report painter reports were created to analyze revenue streams, cost buckets, and profit margins for multiple characteristics combinations (key schemes). ASAP methods were used for integration testing cycles of scenarios to verify the process and end user signoff before migration to production. The final preparation stages of the implementation included conversion of master data objects, transactions, and training of the financial team day to day transactions such as reporting. Go-live cutover and support closed the project.

AM General is the world leader in the design, engineering, and production of military and special purpose vehicles supporting many operations around the globe. The organization required a finance team lead to drive an upgrade from SAP 4.7 to ECC 6.0, acquisition of a new division for transmissions since GM stopped production, and a new handicapped vehicle (MV-1) in the Hummer 2 facility which used the vehicle management system (VMS). The position required many skill sets to educate over 30 people in finance to the new functionality in ECC 6.0 including new and multiple ledgers, profit centers under the ledger, segment reporting to help IFRS/SOX, and real time document splitting (New GL) for the upgrade. The upgrade included a full cycle implementation methodology using best business practices as the base, and incorporating custom development efforts for special government reporting. The blueprint was documented/tracked using a hybrid of ASAP, and Microsoft project. Gaps were identified during blueprint to provide configuration and development of functional specs for true changes required to make sure the integration testing cycles were performing accordingly. The finance and internal management scope included the new general ledger (NGL), profit center accounting (PCA) accounts receivable (A/R), credit management (CM), accounts payable (A/P) , logistic invoice verification (LIV), lockbox, EFT, cost center accounting (CCA), internal orders, product costing (PC-make to stock, make to order-variant configuration, and repetitive), and profitability analysis (COPA). The acquisition of a new company for transmissions required the structured integration of the chart of accounts, cost center, profit centers, global parameters, tolerances, payment programs, intercompany transactions including clearings, and testing all scenarios to verify expected results. The new implementation of the vehicle management system (VMS) for the handicapped vehicle MV-1 included the dealers entering orders using variant configuration, sending the demand to advanced planning optimizer (APO) to do sequencing of the orders thru the plant, and the actual (iPPE) data collection of reporting points back to SAP for cost collector analysis of actual costs, revenue, and profitability. The VMS system contains the entire life cycle of events to include a sales order for batch assignment of VIN numbers, individual components for warranty, reporting point tracking throughout the plant, goods receipt, delivery, and billing. Integration of VMS, APO, iPPE, and ECC tools has helped the organization to communicate both vertically to suppliers, and horizontality from the customer, dealers, thru the plant to deliver a quality product on time. The tools were successful, and the company decided to roll out them to the military part of the business.

Vi-jon is the oldest family owned private label health & beauty care products manufacturing company serving retailers in all 50 states and Canada. The SAP ECC 6.0 full cycle implementation called Phoenix desired a FI/CO team lead for educating the CFO, one new general ledger consultant, two directors, two controllers, one business process owners, one configurator, and thirteen super users in financial/management accounting. The project used solution manager, composer, best business practice building blocks, microsoft project, RWD infopack, and ASAP methodologies to document as-is process requirements into to-be system blueprint tasks such as configuration, functional specs, integrated testing, training, documented business processes, enhancements, conversion activities, and support. The ECC 6.0 scope for finance included three companies using multiple ledgers, new general ledger (NGL) document splitting including characteristics, methods & rules, segment reporting, defining the document types and account determination assignments. The real time integration of profit center accounting (NPCA), accounts receivable (A/R), credit management (CM), account payable (A/P), logistics invoice verification (LIV), and bank activities of lockbox, electronic funds transfer including EDI 820 payment advises rounded the finance scope. The internal management requirements included primary and secondary cost elements in cost center accounting (CCA) for revenue, deductions, costs, accruals, settlements, results analysis, internal activity allocations, and assessments postings. Additional internal requirements included internal orders (I/O) for fixed asset, and statistical tracking; product cost (COPC) for process order plan vs. actual analysis and inventory evaluations; profitability analysis (PA) characteristics, value fields, and derivations for customer, and material gross profit analysis. Requirement gathering sessions were held to document the business blueprint. The blueprint lead to the configuration, system gap development objects, and unit testing of the business processes. The unit tests were strung together by the entire team to complete integration testing scripts and execution. After a couple of cycles of integration testing, and defect resolution a final user acceptance test was completed for final verification by the business. The final preparation stages of the implementation included conversion of master data objects, transactions, and train the financial team day to day transactions. Go-live support closed the project with multiple levels of support from the help desk.

EMD a division of General Motors full cycle implementation of SAP 4.7 CBIG project needed a team leader responsible for the financial module (FI/CO). Financial project management included six implementation configuration people, fifteen super users, and staff using an ASAP five step methodology to integrate the business requirements to system configuration tasks. In addition to financial obligations the project management team leads needed to integrate processes to assure project tasks was completed from end to end including functional, technical, training, documentation, and support. The finance scope included six company codes, general ledger (G/L), accounts receivable (A/R), accounts playable (A/P), fixed assets (FA), and bank processing. The controlling module scope required to use cost center (CCA), profit center (PCA), product costing (COPC), and profitability analysis (COPA). The blueprint phase required face to face organizational requirement gathering sessions to learn the business processes, forms, interfaces, conversions and understand the gaps to the baseline SAP system for work around processes or possible enhancements to the system. The realization phase included the baseline configuration, super user education (train the trainer), and formal integration testing. Business process procedures (BPP) were documented for transactions that represented the business requirements. User acceptance testing using a business process master listing (BPML), documented scripts, and end to end scenarios was planned and tracked. Problem tickets were assigned to resolve unacceptable testing. Configuration and development efforts occurred to retest code changes in the development environment. Once the proof of concept was completed the correction transport system (CTS) migrated the changes to quality environment for retesting and end user sign off. Microsoft project and ASAP methods were used to track progress thru go-live tasks of testing, converted legacy master, and open transactional data using tools such as CATT, LSMW, and manual entry. Another go-live preparation included super users performing end user training and education to the rest of the staff. SAP replaced dozens of decentralized legacy systems on the go-live day. The help desk support system was created for employees to log problem tickets which tracked and assigned to center of excellence (COE) which included super users and configuration specialists to resolve issues of education, training, master data, broken, and changed processes. The same proof of concept control cycle, and migration used during formal integration testing now became procedure for the production system.

SAP 4.7 IS-metal implementation combining three major steel companies (Ryerson, Tull, & Integris) with 50 plants in the United States. ASAP five steps of scope, blueprint, realization, go-live and support were performed along with forms, reports, interfaces, conversions, and enhancements (FRICE) were used to replicate implementation processes for 3 to 4 facilities per quarter. The implementation team required financial leadership to help implement profitability analysis (COPA), account receivable lockbox processing (FIAR), product costing (COPC), and management reporting. The financial team members worked together to convert the legacy data such as customers, vendors, general ledger, accounts receivables, payables, interface payroll, gather management/tax reporting requirement, and configure the system to perform end to end testing scenarios. Legacy systems were interfaced to facilitate general ledger entries, lockbox, consolidated financial statements until all plants are converted to SAP. Converted accounts receivable required lockbox (BAI/BAI2 formats) to have special algorithms specifications coded to increase the actual hit rate performance. Ryerson make to stock (MTS), and make to order (MTO) production order costing used material master standard cost for lower level material cost, adding either outside purchase/processing cost, and activity rates for internal operations. The actual cost accumulated are settled from production orders to stock or sales order and results analysis (RA) used allocation structures to post results to profitability analysis for customer shipments. Customer user exit enhancements were required for special management characteristic/value field derivations. Cost center accounting (CCA) assessments were mapped to COPA for net profit projections. Cost center accounting analyzed expense and work center activities, profit center accounting (report painter) for individual plant profit performance, and detail characteristic profitability analysis were developed for internal management reporting.

Scott’s global business IS-retail information system team required a senior FICO consultant for a staff augmentation due to a resignation. As a member of the staff we worked as a team on production issues, new process tasks, and upgrade to SAP 4.7 requirement gathering work sessions. The short term assignment team lead position required the coordination between GBIS teams to fix production support tickets within a 24 hour period. Issues included educational process procedures, fixed assets (FA) acquisition calculations, bank lockbox, cash application, incorrect cost (CCA) postings and legal & profit center (PCA) accounting reports. The next support level was tasks identified by financial staff as enhancement to the system which included new functionality in the upgrade process. Most of the focus was on logistics invoice verification (LIV) for the overseas operation, and profitability analysis (COPA). All levels of support required development, testing, and regression testing before the migration from quality to the production system.

Boise acquired Office Max and needed a strong integration team leader to make sure the retail and contract industries of office supplies could work under a common SAP 4.7 instance. As a team lead working with the functional financial management, other configurators, and technical developers to convert from JDE to SAP 4.7 IS-Retail model. The team used ASAP methods of project preparation to identify business objectives to integrate industries, blueprint of the company requirements, realization of the configuration or proof of concept, final preparation of testing, interfaces, conversions, reporting, training, and the go live and support. Requirements included the organizational structure, general ledger (GL) for 20 different companies with six different currencies, accounts payable (AP), logistic invoice verification (LIV) in the procure to pay process, cost center accounting (CCA) overhead allocations and assessments, profit center (PCA) planning and profitability analysis (COPA), project systems (PS) for tracking capital, and expenses settlements to fixed assets (FA). Verification of business requirements were completed by scenario script writing and testing for all processes, conversions, and interfaces.

Global Business Implementation Project (Global Business Implementation Process-GBIP) centrally located in Indianapolis, Indiana for integration of multiple countries throughout the world using SAP 4.6c. As a member of the financial planning and reporting solution delivery team working with country personnel, developers and integrated configuration experts to install the financial modules in controlling including profitability analysis (COPA), and finance special ledger (SPL) to conform to FDA and US/EU/AP GAAP regulations. Maintained special ledgers, finance validation & substitution rules, account determination, scorecard tracking, and roll-up reporting requirements for local country and global corporate analysis. Integrated planning in COPA, versions, layouts, and assignments to company codes for both local and global ledgers to tie cost center (CCA), profitability analysis (COPA), internal orders (I/O) and special ledger (SPL) reporting. Management reporting requires COPA characteristic derivation of special fields to be added to current SAP structures. These new structures were used to upload or transfer historical data, sales order, billing, and project settlement information from legacy and SAP modules into COPA for comparison to actual postings. In addition to structure the valuation strategies required cost of products sold to be valued for both valued plants (using the material master cost) and region distribution centers (using a percent from the pricing conditions) to perform integrated planning of sales quantities with manufacturing overhead calculations. Configuration and functional specifications were used to achieve special derivation and valuation the use of SAP enhancements (CMOD or project management) and user exits to develop the expected outcomes. Country specific requirements lead to configuration and development using custom code in user exists which were documented in Documentum and tested in Test Director prior to production migration.

A team member of the SAP4.6c upgrade for the cross company components of the American operations centrally located in Naperville, IL. for global integration worldwide. Financial and Controlling responsibilities included product costing COPC, process order cost tracking and settlement including results analysis PPPI & COIO, Cost/Profit center accounting CCA / PCA budget, actual, and manufacturing activities planning for full cycle flex budgeting. Cost component analysis to develop standard cost, additive cost, and service cost. Cost center allocations and distributions of freight, port-a-feed containers, and inter-company to derive the correct distribution of expense pools. Special Ledger and profitability analysis COPA were used in the reporting of multiple characteristics to help organization make decisions. ASAP methods and tools were utilized to execute the plan on time and budget to replicate the daily activities for Nalco. Scope included the full suite of financial and cost controlling modules. The blueprint scripts were written to cover the financial aspects and integration from SD, MM, PP, SM, PPPI, &WM. Cycle one included a full month end close to complete finance reporting verification. The prepare phase for GO-Live was a complete training course developed and presented to the employees prior to the cutover date. Finally the help desk support for the first month after the go-live date.

A project to help the organization streamline financial operations to take advantage of best business practices in the fixed asset FI-AM, accounts payable FI-AP and foreign currency FI-FC sections of SAP. Working with end users and IT staff to coordinate tasks, configure, and test the fixed asset module FI-AM defining classes, depreciation area with and without tax, depreciation methods, postings, and settlement of internal orders CO-IO for capitalization and leased assets. Resolved a number of accounts payable FI-AP problems such as the SAP script output for check printing, incorrect posting of reconciliation accounts within business area, balancing the sub ledger and general ledger within accounts and business area. To eliminate reconciliation in the future we created validation and substitution rules to start to control the manual/automatic account assignments to post properly. Foreign currency translation FI-FC to implementation for two new Mexican companies using exchange rate to derive the gains or losses from day today transactions. Purchasing materials from suppliers or selling to customers in foreign currency required the system to convert transaction through daily exchange rates. Whether cutting checks, wire transfers or receiving payments from other countries required the system to convert to local currency for reporting purposes.

An Asia Pacific SAP 4.7 global implementation in the telecommunication industry which included 15countries financial operations and reporting. Eight SAP team members and 25employees worked together thru workshops to develop the ASAP Acterna blueprint including forms, interfaces, conversions, and enhancements. The team developed the best practice hub model design to provide compliance from different countries and develop a consistent model for deployment in Europe and America. Wrote the interface specification on legal foreign currency translation FI-FC from the market fluctuations. The configuration of the company codes, general ledger FI-GL, chart of accounts, and fixed assets FI-FA (both legal and historical tracking), cost center accounting CO-CCA, profit center accounting CO-PCA, internal orders CO-IO, and product costing CO-PC were my responsibility including account determination and account assignments for transaction processing. Legacy fixed asset were converted to SAP. Strategic capitalization and depreciation methods were used for tax advantages. Set up asset classes and depreciation areas in FI-FA

Capital expenditures were budgeted, purchased and tracked until retired. Input from legacy systems were documented with functional specs for conversions of master data and interfaces by team efforts with the ABAP developers. Computer Aided testing tool ABAP-CATT scripts were written for uploading data, and reporting requirements. After twelve weeks of efforts the team started to confirmation test configuration during the realization phase of the project plan when the unexpected telecommunication industry revenue slumped of over 50 percent showing unprofitable financial statements. The first quarter result of 2003 indicated postponement of a number of Acterna projects until further notice, which included an SAP install at this time.

A short-term SAP 4.6c project to help the organization streamline financial operations to take advantage of best business practices. The team worked with vendors to pay from the goods receipt transaction (ERS) to relieve addition SGA costs such as invoice maintenance, reconciliation, and clearing. I worked with a team of employees and suppliers to get the requirements, expectations, configure, test, educate, and migrate seamlessly to production. Another task was to configure the SAP system for foreign currency translation FI–FC of all transactions for the foreign operations for month end management and legal reporting. The mapping of account assignments for material management processes for proper reporting of currency gain and losses based on the daily transaction processes between countries. Month end reports were converted into multiple currencies for internal management analysis in different countries.

Worked together with 5financial implementation configurator installing SAP 4.6c at Caterpillar for two clients Land Rover and MG Rover secondary parts distribution in Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and France. Using a hybrid methodology of ASAP we gathered business requirements in blueprint to configure, unit /integration test, and training to prepare for go-live. During the process the identification of external reporting / configuration from the general ledger, and accounts payable(governmental, VAT/green taxes, intrastat); and internal reports of profitability analysis (COPA) including assessment from cost/profit center accounting (CCA/PCA) left the team with some gaps in which ABAP queries, and report painter were written. Fixed Assets FI-FA was converted from legacy systems for both tax and historical tracking. The fixed assets and depreciation were tracked from the vendor purchase to the retirement at scrap value. Straight line and declining balance methods for depreciation helped to utilize the most effective tax savings. ERS self-billing was configured to pay vendors from account payable on the goods receipt transaction during the invoice verification process to request check to be paid. Computer aided testing tools (CATT) were recorded to load master data into the system (material, vendor, customer masters, chart of accounts, exchange rates, budgets). Functional specs were written to interface the SAP system to interact with the CAT logistics warehouse management system (LIMS). Foreign currency translation (FI-FC) was computed for all transactions between countries. Integration testing (including authorization roles) occurred for the procurement and sales cycles through the month end closing process. Documentation of configuration, and business processes (BPP) along with hands on education helped with the training of end users. After the go-live some business processes needed fine-tuning in which OSS notes were applied to test systems, and transports migrated changes to quality and production once tested. Error listings helped to identify broken processes, and the need for additional end user training for continuous improvement to the system.

Coached and worked as a team with a couple of FI/CO ISBA in the support of financial business requirements in the general ledger FI-GL, account receivable FI-AR and accounts payable FI-AP, cost and profit center CO-CCA/PCA, internal orders CO-IO, product costing CO-PC, and profitability analysis CO-PA. Along with the information systems integration team of 12 developers, 12-business analysts, and 6 quality testers to fix broken processes, add functionality, and continuous improvements onto the SAP system. Managed the financial department business requirements from the requirement gathering phase into the integrated configuration or development efforts required to do the quality assurance documentation and testing, and verify that system performance will not be impacted once the transports are in production environment. An SAP 4.6cupgrade from 3.1h to 4.6c, which included some creative validation and substitution rules for account determination and assessment from key statistical figures.

Utilized the ASAP methods of blue printing, realization, testing, prepare to go live, and go live to fast track the implementation of SAP 4.0. The Rapid Offsite Implementation (ROI) of the CO module includes cost centers CCA, profit centers PCA, internal orders IO, product costing PC, and profitability analysis PA. The objects used within the controlling module included: cost elements, activities, and assessments, order settlement, planning activities, postings, and reporting. As functional team lead I identified the business requirements through the Blueprint, detailed planned tasks, and unit cycle tested the written scripts, developed the integration tests, and documented the configuration and business process procedures, and end user training materials. Report painter training and ABAP query tools were used for client satisfaction.

Utilized the ASAP methods of blue printing, realization, testing, prepare to go live, and go live to fast track the implementation of SAP. As functional team leader the tasks assigned were to identification of the business processes in scope, planning the activities, wrote scripts, unit tested scripts, integration script testing, documented policies and procedure, developed end user training, and prepared for production. The controlling module set up included the controlling company hierarchy, profit centers PCA, cost centers CCA, internal orders IO, product costing PC and profitability analysis PA. Manufacturing analysis required cost collectors for repetitive production orders in a Kanban inventory environment for component inventory, along with make to order for the final assemblies for the just in time shipments to end customers. The cost objects covered elements, activities, settlements, overhead rates, planning events, inventory evaluations, and reports/postings into the general ledger. As integration co-captain the responsibilities included the integration of functional scripts into scenarios, legacy database conversion, manual updates to populate the test platform, interface testing of non SAP application, coordination of team leads to write, execute, re-customize problems, and get final signoff on the software functioning properly. Verify the accuracy of the testing, and coordinate the progress and problems during the procedure.

James A. Wohlhart

JWohlhart@JAWScorporation.com

Roosevelt University