.1. Discuss Ted Anderson’s role in the PAS project.

2. Discuss Peter Shaw’s role in the PAS project.

Late Friday afternoon, T. N. (Ted) Anderson, director of disbursements for Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc. (CIPI), sat staring out the wide window of his 12th-floor corner office, but his mind was elsewhere. Anderson was thinking about the tragic accident that had nearly killed Linda Watkins, project director for the Payables Audit Systems (PAS) development project. Thursday night. when she was on her way home from a movie, a drunken driver had hit her car head on. She would survive, but it would be months before she would be back to work. The PAS system was a critical component of a group of interrelated systems intended to support fundamental changes in how billing and accounts payable at CIPI were handled. Without Watkins, it was in deep trouble. Deeply committed to the success of these new approaches, Anderson did not know exactly what he could do, but he knew he had to take drastic action. He picked up his phone and told his secretary. "Please get me an appointment with IS Director Charles Bunke for the first thing Monday morning." Anderson would have the weekend to decide what to do. The Origin of the PAS Project Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc., is a Fortune 100 manufacturer of a large variety of well-known products for both individuals and industry. Headquartered in the United States, CIPI is an international company with facilities in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The PAS project was one of several interrelated projects that resulted from a fundamental reevaluation of CIPI's accounts payable process as part of CIPI's Copyright 2000 (revised) by Professor E. W. Martin. No part of this case study may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author. This case was prepared by Professor Martin as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Its development was supported by the Institute for Research on the Management of Information Systems (IRMIS) of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. companywide emphasis on total quality management (TQM). Anderson recalls: In late 1991 we began to look at what we were doing, how we were doing it, the costs involved, and the value we were adding to the company. We real- ized that, even with our computer systems, we were very labor-intensive, and that there ought to be things we could do to increase our productivity and our value added. So we decided to completely rethink what we were currently doing and how we were doing it. Since we were a part of the procurement process, we needed to understand that total process and where accounts payable fit into it. We found that procurement was a three-part process-purchasing the goods, receiving them, and finally paying for them. And we concluded that our role was pretty extensive for someone who was just supposed to be paying the bills. We were spending a lot of effort try- ing to match purchase orders with receiving reports and invoices to make sure that everyone else had done their job properly. We typically had about 15,000 suspended items that we were holding up pay- ment on because of some question that arose in cur examination of these three pieces of information. Many of these items spent 30 to 60 days in suspen- sion before we got them corrected, and the vast majority of the problems were not the vendor's fault but rather the result of mistakes within CIPI. For some of our small vendors for whom we were a dom- inant customer, this could result in severe cash flow problems, and even bankruptcy. With today's empha- sis upon strategic partnerships with our vendors, this was intolerable. We finally recognized that the fundamental responsibility for procurement rests with purchas- ing, and once they have ordered the goods, the next thing that is needed is some proof that the goods were received, and we are outside that process also.