Technology upgrade will help improve city services, processes

In the late 1980s, the Cold War was coming to an end, the World Wide Web had not been born, and the fax machine was considered cutting-edge technology.

About that time, the City of College Station purchased fancy new business management software.

A quarter of a century later, those fax machines are gathering dust and the internet is a necessity. Meanwhile, College Station’s population has doubled, yet the city is still using that same software system.

But it’s not so fancy, anymore. In fact, it’s barely functional.

That’s why the city is investing more than $5 million in a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that can fully and effectively handle our wide range of business needs and activities.

Why is this important?

The new ERP system will mean improved delivery of services to our citizens, increased transparency and accountability, and better opportunities for efficient citizen and vendor self-service.

Your local government functions as an engineering firm, fire department, police department, law firm, entertainment and facilities provider, road builder and maintainer, traffic controller, urban planning and development facilitator, and fleet manger to name just some of its roles. The departments that provide those services have to work in an integrated way for the city to operate effectively and efficiently.

What’s next?

The city council in March approved staff’s recommendation to search for a new ERP system. We are conducting an in-depth selection process to identify a new vendor and system, which we hope to begin implementing in phases early next year. The system should be completely integrated in 2-3 years.

Such large-scale implementations are difficult and take a tremendous amount of time and effort. To help with those challenges, we’re also working with a professional consulting firm that specializes in public sector ERP implementations.

We’re confident the new ERP system will allow your city government to operate more efficiently while providing you with better service.