DisputeSoft was engaged as a testifying expert in December 2017 by MillerCoors, LLC to assist in a breach of contract suit before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit related to an unsuccessful effort by HCL Technologies to install, implement, and customize an SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on behalf of MillerCoors.

Beginning in 2012, MillerCoors embarked on an effort to standardize and modernize its business operations in warehouses throughout the United States. A key component of this effort was the installation and customization of SAP’s Extended Warehouse Management (eWM) software. Beginning in December 2013, MillerCoors and HCL Technologies entered into a series of contracts under which HCL agreed to review and document MillerCoors’ existing business process blueprints, and then plan, build, and test a customized version of SAP eWM in MillerCoors’ warehouses.

On June 20, 2016, MillerCoors terminated the project for cause, alleging that mismanagement by HCL had contributed to the development of defective and incomplete software, as well as significant budget and schedule overruns. HCL filed a counterclaim, asserting that MillerCoors had failed to effectively communicate expectations, misrepresented the scope of work, and changed its business requirements after the project had begun. MillerCoors subsequently engaged DisputeSoft to conduct a defect analysis and provide expert opinions with regard to its breach of contract claim.

Our Services

As software experts, DisputeSoft performed the following services:

Reviewed key project documentation including e-mail correspondence, project status reports, and project schedules to assess whether HCL provided adequate staffing on the project, and whether inadequate staffing contributed to its failure to complete project deliverables according to contractual milestone dates.

Conducted data analytics of defect tickets stored in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and ServiceNow systems, to assess the validity of MillerCoors’ claim that HCL a) failed to adequately address defects uncovered during software testing, and b) failed to timely resolve production defects after the system’s “go live” date.

Researched functional requirements specifications and change request documents to assess the validity of HCL’s claim that MillerCoors expanded the project’s scope.

DisputeSoft submitted a preliminary findings summary outlining missteps on the project, including poor scope estimation, mismanagement, and failure to provide adequate staffing. MillerCoors and HCL entered into a settlement agreement for an unspecified amount in September 2018, prior to submission of DisputeSoft’s expert report.