The Chemical IBU's own Ray Adams (Supply Chain expert and infamous BPX blogger) received an award from CISUG for his ongoing service and support to CISUG. Read here about what CISUG is all about and how what could be in it for you.
CISUG was founded in 2006 by the Chemical Information Technology Center (ChemITC) of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The Washington-based industry group is a forum for companies in and associated with the ACC to address common IT issues and support the industry’s ability to safely and efficiently deliver products essential to society. The ChemITC decided that it was critical to have a group focused exclusively on strategic elements within the SAP landscape that extended to partner activities with domain expertise. Spring and fall face to face events were held in 2006 and in 2007. After 2 short years, the participation in CISUG grew to the point where it needed to be managed by the America’s SAP Users Group (ASUG) and CISUG transitioned under the ASUG umbrella in 2008.
CISUG is governed by a leadership committee comprised of 6-8 volunteers from Industries Business Unit as points of contacts (POC’s) and ASUG provides strategic industry support and administration. The leadership team establishes working groups that accomplish specific charters to meet an industry need. Today, there are 4 active working groups: Manufacturing, Compliance, Customer Relationship Management, and Supply Chain. Previous groups have also addressed Transportation and Intellectual Property. The working groups have effectively influenced SAP in the areas of transportation (TM 6.0 and RCM), compliance (REACH application), manufacturing (SAP MII 12.5), and supply chain (process industry enhancements to PP/DS).
CISUG is unique to the typical structure of an industry special interest group (SIG) under ASUG. Our uniqueness is also the reason for our effectiveness. First, an active leadership team is critical to the success of the entire group. This team meets via teleconference every 2 weeks to review the progress of the working groups, to address succession planning and to plan the face to face events. Equally important to the leadership team is executive sponsorship from the respective CIO’s who ultimately provide voluntary resources to the leadership team and to the working groups. This sponsorship for CISUG is maintained through the CIO Roundtable of the ChemITC and thru the Chemical Executive Advisory Council (CEAC). Formal meetings are held between the executive sponsors and the CISUG leadership team for strategic guidance and for ongoing support. Finally, the working groups must provide tangible value and results to the entire industry through effective influence and education sessions. SAP must take the input from these groups, build business cases, and develop industry-specific functionality either in new solutions, existing solutions or partner applications. In addition, SAP must provide education on existing solutions and roadmaps through seminars, web conferences, face to face events, and peer to peer broadcasting.
CISUG was given 2 awards during the 2009 annual ASUG conference. One award was presented to outgoing CISUG leader Doug Thomson of Nova Chemicals for his commitment to the team during the transition to ASUG. The other award was given to Ray Adams, SAP POC from the Chemicals Industries Business Unit, for his ongoing service and support to CISUG throughout the year.
What’s Next for CISUG?
CISUG would like to continue to expand its membership to get additional chemical companies engaged on the leadership team and on the working groups. Participation is critical to ongoing support. CISUG is beginning to plan for the 2009 Fall face to face event – despite the travel restrictions, CISUG members have encouraged SAP to sponsor the fall event. CISUG also welcomes to help other industry SIG’s become more effective by sharing best practices and lessons learned during the past 3 years.
