Oil changes for life

Quick show of hands - do you change the oil in your car yourself, or once every few months or so roll up to the local QuickJiffySuperFast Lube place and have someone else take care of it?

I will bet most of you don't change your own oil any longer.  There are plenty of reasons why these lube places seem to be on every corner.  Changing the oil yourself is a hassle. It is a dirty, occasionally difficult job.  Engines have become increasingly complex over the years making even simple maintenance tasks beyond the skill level of the average motorist. On many new cars, 'oil changes for life' done by the dealer are part of the purchase discussion. Disposing of used oil is a real hassle, (I don't want to tell you what my Dad had me do with the used oil from his cars back in the day).

For the vast majority of drivers, we need our cars to take us where we need to go, in relative comfort and safety, and really can't be bothered with the grease, spare parts, and complex systems that make the car 'work'.  We just need it to work.  And more and more, we want our cars to do more, embedded GPS, enhanced safety capability, better fuel efficiency (maybe no fuel at all), and able to provide backseat entertainment for the kids. Oh yeah, and also pop a warning light on the dash when it's time to change the oil.

I have been sitting in sessions this week talking about the approach to another major ERP system upgrade.  It is just as you would expect, an old version of the suite, (and really showing its age), installed on-premise, loads of customizations, with application and database hardware probably not equal to the task.  Major, major cost and effort to effect this upgrade. Nothing (save the data) in the current deployment to remain.

I even heard a random, 'this is going to take 18 months', comment tossed about.  And the thing is, the 'latest' version of the suite the organization would be upgrading to, is already a few years old. Tack on the time for planning, testing, re-training, and deploying and by the time the effort is complete, the organization will be the proud owners of a five year old system. 

Lots of time and effort by dozens of smart people working hard to deliver a 'slightly pre-owned' system to a set of drivers/users that really just want all the best features of the newest models on the road. Systems that have the newest capabilities, features, updated interfaces, integration with internal and external social networking, mobile apps, and more.

And oh yeah, toss in the 'oil changes for life' and we have a deal.