Sept. 11, 2000

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A Penchant For Simplicity Works At Boise Cascade

By Sandra Swanson

f you want to win the esteem of Robert Egan, Boise Cascade Corp.'s director of IS, you might start by telling him about your absolute obsession with simplicity. If true, you'll find a kindred spirit in Egan, whose penchant for trying to simplify projects and processes has served him well during his six-year IT tenure at Boise Cascade.

The forest products company's enterprise resource planning package is one example. IS staff replaced more than 400 variations of computer-planning systems with a single PeopleSoft ERP package, which has been in place for a year. "The wonderful thing is that we only have one ERP. I know there are other companies in our industry that have a little bit of Baan, a little SAP, a little PeopleSoft," says Egan. "So while they've put in a front end for customers, they also have to integrate all of their systems. We're not faced with that."

To accomplish the changeover, the IS department converted all networks to TCP/IP, put in a Unix platform with an Oracle database, and added modules of the PeopleSoft package to replace disparate systems that had built up over many years. "Unlike a lot of companies," Egan says, "we finished on time and under budget," which helped improve operating efficiency. For example, it replaced 24 different large purchasing systems with one and condensed 14 major accounting-ledger systems into one. E-commerce is the next big challenge for Boise Cascade--using IBM WebSphere to build a system that lets paper product customers place orders and access real-time inventory and production information online.

Boise Cascade, in Boise, Idaho, had nearly $2 billion in sales last year for paper products alone, but among the many challenges U.S. paper products companies face are trade barriers. While tariffs on imports to the United States are around 2%, in Asia they can reach 40%, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.

The nature of the business compels Egan to place a premium on streamlining projects. The company runs huge paper factories on tight margins, so IT is also expected to run efficiently, he says. "That's given us a rather focused approach to rolling out projects and choosing technologies."

Egan says there's another benefit to simplicity: It creates an atmosphere that appeals to IT employees, critical in today's tight labor market. That might seem counterintuitive, but Egan maintains that more are impressed by an elegant system that works. "More people like the environment to do everything they want it to do, but in the most simple, cost-effective way," he says. "If you're able to pull that off, it's a pretty pleasant place to work."

Egan expects reasonable management skills from employees, but that's not No. 1 on his promotion check-list. "We would rather err on the side of getting the technical expertise," he says. He also says that "if a supervisor isn't technically competent, you'll drive all the good folks out of the company over time." And that, simply, is something Egan won't let happen.

Return to main story, "Standing Out OnThe Web"

Illustration by Jeffrey Fisher

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