Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 3/2005 Budget @ a research university Which way? Adam Shwartz HERUG 2005.

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

3/2005

Budget @ a research university

Which way?

Adam Shwartz

HERUG 2005

3/2005

Technion

Israel Institute of Technology


3/2003

Technion basic facts:

• Age: 81 (first university in Israel).

• Departments (Science, Engineering, Medicine) 18

• Research institutes and centers 40

• Faculty: full time 700

part time 700

• Staff (professionals and admin): 1400

• Undergraduates 10000

• Graduate students 3500


3/2005

The issue:

What are the (future) requirements (back-office IT) of a research university?

Comparison with present/near future SAP capabilities.

But why budget?

The key:

Where are we unique,

How is this addressed in the business processes.


3/2005

Breakdown of requirements from ERP - By role:

• Administrators

• Central admin: Logistics, finance, HR

• Central admin: Research, Students = the business

• Central admin: Alumni, Donors, partners

• Local admin: faculty, department, center, laboratory

• Research staff and other professionals

• Students

• Others (HR, external)

Will argue: Reasonable support for all but researchers.


3/2005

Breakdown of requirements from ERP - By process:

• Vertical processes:

• Logistics, finance, HR, Sales

• Research, Students

• Budget, donations, construction and maintenance

• Cross – application requirements

Will argue: Reasonable support for vertical processes

Deficiencies in Budget integration (GM/FM/CO/FI/MM/PM)

Deficiencies in Authorization tools

Useability issues


3/2005

A Personal (Technion) experience with SAP:

9-month implementation, as of 1/2004 live with

Logistics, finance, grants (MM PM PS FI CO FM GM SD)

(also small BW, mini-HR, starting Portal).

About 1000 users (central/faculty admin, research)

Over 10,000 research grants of various types:

Research grants (many types)

Donations (permanent funds/projects)

Internal grants.


3/2005

A Personal (Technion) experience with SAP (overview):

Logistics (MM: Purchasing, warehouse): Mostly standard processes (except import). Issues: Budget, authorization.

Construction and maintenance (PM, PS): Mostly standard processes. Issues in construction. Issues with budget, authorization and useability.

Finance (FI): mostly standard processes.

Sales (SD): mostly simple, standard processes.

Budget – operations (CO FM): some non-standard processes, including overhead, reporting, authorizations.

Budget – research (CO FM GM): Many non-standard processes as above, useability.


3/2005

Before going into detail: Goals and Vision

We are a research-oriented university

• Research (creating knowledge)

• Disseminating knowledge (teaching and otherwise).

Technion Business card:

• Two 2004 Nobels (Chemistry)

• New material (Shechtmanite – Physics)

• The compression algorithm (Lempel-Ziv: winzip et al)

• Leading research, technology leaders (e.g. Agassi, Intel Senior VP, Applied Materials CEO, etc etc).


3/2005

Research-oriented university

Research is the clear top priority. Ergo:

• Obtain the best researchers

• Keep the researchers (transparent administration, efficient support of research, minimal restrictions or interference, individualists). Keep researchers happy

• Make sure funding support increases

• Comply with grantors management/reporting rules (such as: buy US first, use grantor exchange rate)

• Invest in academia, not administrators


3/2005

Trends (personal view):

• Support will not increase:

• government and state (tuition?)

• funding agencies, donations

• Auditing will increase

• Government agencies, funding agencies, Donors

• The public/Press

• Research is increasingly competitive, interdisciplinary, without national borders (e.g. physics).


3/2005

These dictates:

• Thin administration---self service: reservations, orders, budget. SAP approach: Portal, EBP, BW

• Real-time, accurate Availability Control for budget:

• Multi currency, Flexible periods: GM

• Integration throughout the system

• Reporting tools (for grantors, donors) by grantor rules: GM

This requires budget integration


3/2005

The research (experimental) operation

• Project/experiment:

• Run by subteams, including students/postdocs/staff

• Many unique/small/urgent/special items/services e.g. biological experiments

• Joint acquisitions across grants

But the researcher is not a manager!

In more detail:


3/2005

The research (experimental) operation: example

• Project/experiment: computation of cell properties

• Run by Cho from CS, Boris from Biology, Ben-Ph.D. student from Bio-Engineering, Bo-staff from biology.

•Joint grant of Cho and Boris, lab budget from Biology

• Need different permissions for each team member

• Buy equipment together with another team---split costs including operating costs.

• Conclusion: Authorizations are neither HR nor grant based. Too many roles to create/handle!

But the researcher is not an administrator!


3/2005

Options:

• Hire research administrators (large overhead)

• Self service:

• Make those operations friendly, fool-proof:

• Authorizations with local maintenance

• User-friendly transactions and reports

• Availability control and reporting are critical.

• Technion Solution for authorization – will discuss below.


3/2005

A business analogue:

• A research grant is like a small business (5-500K$/year):

• Includes manager and partners, all may be on several very different businesses, all run on one system

• Deals with purchasing, production, budget, CRM, sometimes sales, sometimes joint ventures

• Is subject to strict auditing,

• Manager is expert only in production, not in management

• Is subject to unique rules (grant, department)

•Stakeholders need to enforce compliance, without much effort/expense, and without hands-on supervision.


3/2005

People services: Relation to SAP solution/vision

• Useability: netweaver is coming

• At present: portal is a solution, requires much effort

• Authorization: need additional tools.

• Technion solution for grant authorizations (below): Does a good job, requires more tools

• Administrators use SAP standard

• Special solution for research staff


3/2005

Technion solution for authorizations: Research staff

• Grant carries an authorization table: user/allowed actions

• Relevant transactions check against the grant.

• Drawbacks:

• not in the hands of the end user (owner):

• Authorizations for authorizations…

• Interface

• Not flexible enough (parameters per user)

• Requires work within each transaction, administration

Conclusion: need better tools.


3/2005

MM PM Processes and budget: lack of tools

• Reservations: authorization, workflow

• Restrict access to e.g. PO information (research)

Budget: no solution

• Allow joint grants/departments purchasing

• No solution: e.g. split shipping costs split maintenance costs

• Export for repair/upgrade: no process

• Authorization and restricted access in warehouse reservation

• Budget approval process: workflow


3/2005

FI CO FM vs GM

Compatible processes/data/reports on activities (budget)

Example: exchange rates and on-line information

• Budget reservation with PO

• Need actuals in FI at GR (Goods Receipt)

• But GR information in Grant not relevant (cannot avoid!)

• Invoice exchange rate does not correct GM budget!

• Result: incorrect GM budget, not compatible with FI.


3/2005

Conclusions:

Unique vertical University solutions are given attention

Campus management, Grants

Problems: at integration w/budget, cross-application tools:

Universities cover a wide range of business processes

Need better tools in

• People interface

• Authorization and data access

• User interface

• Need more flexible budget tools and integration

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 3/2005 Budget @ a research university Which way? Adam Shwartz HERUG 2005.

Documents

budget research

research university

sales research

leading research

research institutes

technology leaders

laboratory research

personal technion experience