Bloomberg News, via New York Times, 8 Jan 2000 [print edition, entire item typed in by hand below]:

W.W. Grainger Warns About Fourth-Quarter Earnings

W.W. Grainger Inc., a distributor of compressors, pumps,and hand tools, warned yesterday that its fourth-quarter earnings might be as much as 45 percent less than estimates because of higher costs and inventory problems. The company had been expected to earn 54 cents a share, according to analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.

W.W. Grainger, which sells more than 550,000 repair and maintenance items, said it experienced slowdowns and had had problems processing transactions during the quarter. It also had trouble keeping track of inventory because of a resource planning system it installed in 1999. The company said it had higher employee compensation costs because of the new system. W.W. Grainger shares fell 68.75 cents each, to $44.375. --------------------------------------------------- Does anyone know if W.W Grainger used SAP? This sure smells like the problems Hershey Foods, Whirlpool, and Samsonite, among others, were having. "Trouble keeping track of inventory and...processing transactions." Sounds like problems relating to Y2K-last-minute software installation: "a resource planning system it installed in 1999."

Just how many Fortune 500 companies can we have experiencing such "problems" before we all feel it? A Recession is when your neighbor is out of work, a Depression is when *YOU* are out of work...

This is what Death By A Thousand Cuts feels like.

--Andre Weltman, southcentral PA

-- Andre Weltman (72320.1066@compuserve.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

thanks for article....greetings from hanover

-- eric micael....allen (bizerr4@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

http://library.northernlight.com/WS20000110020000097. html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc

Grainger Says it Will Miss Estimates After Installing Complex ERP Software

The installation of complicated enterprise resource planning software, designed to integrate manufacturing processes with purchasing, inventory management, order-taking functions and finance-management systems, has forced W.W. Grainger Inc. to announce that it will not meet earnings projections. The reason: computer problems. The company said it will miss its fourth-quarter estimates. The company already blamed the new computer system harming estimates in the second and third quarters.

For additional information refer to The Wall Street Journal or go to http://www.wsj.com.

Copyright ) 1999 by Northern Light Technology Inc. All rights reserved.

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-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), January 10, 2000.

Thanks Andre for the heads up,. My husband was going to order an air compressor for our Toyota 4x4 from Grainger on Friday. Guess, we'll have to drive to order from somewhere else.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 10, 2000.

My company installed erp software the end of 98. Its Oracle. This stuff works, but it is slow and clumsy and crashes frequently. It crashed on me today when I wanted to print, and to back up.

Each of our factories lost $1 million+ getting production back up to speed.

-- john littmann (littmannj@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Grainger is an SAP customer.

-- Scarecrow (Somewhere@Over.Rainbow), January 11, 2000.

Andre thanks for the post. This may be the way " not a Y2k problem plays out. We use WW.Grainger frequently where i work. It will be one of the many to watc

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), January 11, 2000.

If Y2K is going to harm the economy. we should be seeing quite a few of these type announcements in April. It doesn't matter if they are identified as y2k problems. They will still harm the economy.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

It occurs to me that as a big time SAP promoter, Hoffy really might want to stay away from any and all Grainger stores. As I recall, they carry some pretty nice pitchforks in stock.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 11, 2000.

Yes indeed WWG is on sap and last year was a very aggrivating and disappointing year. Top management has not bailed out yet and neither am I going to. WWG will survive this and will come out even stronger once we are completely out of this tunnel. The only time we had trouble getting generators was in late summer early fall. From Nov. on through 12-31-99, the generators would come in and be sold within two days. In almost every instance, if we didn't have the generator the day the customer wanted it, we could get it for him/her in 1-2 days. Some people didn't want to wait that long because it was to close to the end of the year. Some of these people waited until the week after Christmas to order their generators, gas cans, etc. etc. Why wait so long when they had all year????? Well, enough said for now. I'm just waiting for the first signs of the recession.

-- Terry L Cletcher (terbridg@netnitco.net), January 12, 2000.