Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Budget @ a research university
Which way?
Adam Shwartz
HERUG 2005
3/2005
Technion
Israel Institute of Technology
3/2005
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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):
• Undergraduates
• Graduate students
3/2003
1400
10000
3500
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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 – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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
3/2005