Several factors combined to initiate the move to ERP. Y2K incompatibility was a key issue. Mul- tiple upgrades and recreation of site-specific modifications would have been required to become Y2K compliant. The cost in dollars and business disruption would have been significant. Since the base software had not been significantly improved in recent years, the expense and effort would at best achieve no functional improvement. In addition, the business environment was rapidly changing to encourage more intimate business-to- business transactions with key customers, and the old system was not compatible with the newer systems that were being installed in the customer base. Future enhancements to the existing system were not expected, and Huck did not want to maintain in-house information system resources to develop the new capabilities and interfaces that would be required.