Its legacy maintenance systems include an application from Atos, SAP R/3, and other disparate systems. In planning this move, Warr was tasked with modernising the UK bus business’s maintenance systems. In May 2019, the company announced that it would, through a sale or other form of divestment, separate First Bus from FirstGroup. It runs diesel, electric, hybrid, hydrogen and gas buses, as well as ancillary vehicles.

“So obviously, it seemed reasonable and natural ⁠– and also was the chief executive’s view – that we should integrate maintenance within that platform.”įirst Bus owns about 5,500 vehicles in the UK and operates one-fifth of all local bus services outside London. “We were just embarking on an SAP Hana upgrade of our enterprise platform,” says Warr. Instead of going with its enterprise resource planning ( ERP) supplier, First Bus opted for technology from Infor, in a move that commentators say signals the ease at which businesses can take a pick-and-mix approach to enterprise application strategy. “It was a really hard sell to say ‘no’,” says Ian Warr, UK engineering director at First Bus. When UK bus company First Bus, part of global transport company FirstGroup, decided to upgrade its asset management and maintenance systems, it avoided senior management’s first choice of adopting SAP, which provides its main business systems.

Hexagon buys infor eam