News Releases

Peralta Community College and RWD Technologies Implement Successful Change Management Program to Facilitate College's Transition to PeopleSoft 8.9

Employee-Friendly Best Practices Spur Adoption, Increased Productivity

Baltimore, MD, April 21, 2008

RWD Technologies LLC., a global company that develops and implements organizational performance solutions, announced today that the company has successfully implemented a change management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) migration program for Peralta Community College. The program helped facilitate the organization's transition from older, disparate applications to a single ERP solution, PeopleSoft 8.9.

The decision to migrate Peralta Community College to PeopleSoft 8.9 was driven by the need to unify separate ERP processes across the five-campus, Northern California-based institution which serves approximately 20,000 students. With PeopleSoft 8.9 the college will create new efficiencies within the areas of student administration, human resources management and financial management.

To manage the PeopleSoft transition, RWD consultants leveraged RWD InfoPak®, a documentation and simulation tool which increases end user productivity, to create business process documentation for three PeopleSoft modules. However, RWD also recognized that Peralta needed a method to address the change management issues it faced during system implementation.

"When we decided to upgrade our ERP system to one that we knew would standardize and improve processes, we encountered a degree of faculty and staff resistance within each college, including resistance from campus leadership who were comfortable with the procedures that were already developed," said Howard Perdue, Vice Chancellor of Student Services, Peralta Community College. "We were fortunate that RWD helped us implement a system that is now providing a high level of student service and consistent business processes across our campuses."

Together, RWD and Peralta addressed the resistance issue with RWD's change management program. The program included an organizational assessment that helped Peralta understand the leadership, business readiness and communication issues that would come with the transition. RWD then developed an aggressive training regiment comprised of instructor-led classroom training and online web-based training. Finally, RWD recommended a set of best practices for the PeopleSoft system that were based on practices already established by employees under the older ERP system.

Combined with in-depth training and ongoing performance support, RWD helped Peralta Community College standardized their ERP processes.

"Making the most out of an ERP investment requires companies to think about the entire solution life cycle," said Brian Lapthorn, Division Director RWD. "ERP training and support should be a strategic phase of system implementation - beginning with planning and preparing the organization for the coming change, continuing through rollout and concluding with contextual, post-go-live job support. It's this holistic approach that makes the difference for our customers - they are prepared at every stage of ERP implementation."

For more information, please contact RWD Technologies at 410-869-1000 or online at www.rwd.com.

About RWD Technologies, LLC.

RWD is a leading provider of human and operational performance improvement solutions that help employers maximize the return on their investments in people, processes, technology, equipment, knowledge and customers. Since 1988, RWD has assisted clients and partners in enhancing organizational productivity through its broad range of integrated products and services, which include human capital management and IT consulting services, business transformation and lean process improvement, end-user training, change management, knowledge management and operator effectiveness management. RWD's solutions are used in thousands of organizations globally, and in industries such as manufacturing, energy, automotive, aerospace, healthcare, life sciences, consumer products, financial, telecommunications, services, higher education and the public sector.

Based in Baltimore, Maryland, RWD serves Fortune 500 and other organizations around the world. RWD is privately held, with more than 1,100 employees in offices in the Unites States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Dubai, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Kazakhstan. For more information, visit www.rwd.com.

RWD Technologies, RWD Info Pak, and RWD are registered trademarks of RWD Technologies, LLC in the United States and several other countries. All other names are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.