The University of Wisconsin (UW) is reassessing an overdue and overbudget ERP software project that has so far cost the school US$25 million and missed its go-live date.

The university"s Appointment, Payroll and Benefits Systems (APBS) rollout, built around applications from St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson Software Inc., was designed to replace a 30-year-old system with an eye on cost savings and ease of use. But as go-live dates were missed and costs continued to rise, active work on the project was effectively put on hold in February.

A risk assessment at the time found that too much time -- three years -- was spent on preplanning the project. Also, there was institutional resistance to Lawson software on the Madison campus, which already used PeopleSoft financials and student information software; delayed timelines, uncooperative users and poor interteam communications led to staff burnout; and the implementation involved 251 customized applications and eight bolt-on applications from Lawson. Delays and overruns could push the final price tag to between $55 million and $62 million.

UW now plans a special assessment of the APBS project for its flagship Madison campus, according to Don Mash, executive vice president for the UW system. Mash has also served since March as chairman of the steering committee overseeing the effort, which has been in the works for about six years.

According to Mash, APBS was undertaken so UW could retire a hand-built mainframe-based legacy system. Although the aging software could still handle basic payroll and other functions, the school wanted to replace it with something that was easier to use, more efficient and cheaper to run, Mash said.

Mash acknowledged that the rollout across what will be 26 campuses proved complicated, and said planning deficiencies and too little cooperation between the implementation staff and the end users became problematic.

"We aren"t as far along as we"d hoped and spent more money than we had originally acknowledged we"d need," said Mash. "A couple of go-lives were scheduled and then canceled. What we"ve spent and the amount of time it"s taken, in the big scheme of things, are really not out of the ordinary. But to the general public, after spending $25 million and there"s not a product, you"ve got a problem."

APBS officials are now waiting until the special assessment is completed in September before deciding how best to proceed. One option might involve swapping out the Lawson software for Oracle Corp."s PeopleSoft products, although that possibility is seen as unlikely.

While Mash said UW might consider swapping Lawson out for another vendor, "We don"t know where all this will come out. Whether or not we"ll start with another company is not known, but it would be stretch to do that."

In the meantime, UW is still running its mainframe software, which will be obsolete within three years.

The university is the largest Lawson client in the higher education sphere, said Dan Schmidtke, strategic account manager at the vendor. He said problems with the project stem from issues beyond Lawson"s control.

"There are no material issues with Lawson"s products or services," Schmidtke said. "The issues noted are pretty much beyond Lawson"s scope....We have a good strong relationship with UW and look forward to their go-live."

Cost overruns for a human resources and payroll system aren"t unusual, although outright failure is, said Paul Hamerman, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based consultancy. No matter which vendor is involved, he said, there will be significant complexity for any higher-ed rollout involving multiple campuses and a wide variety of compensation policies and pay practices.