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ERP
in 9 weeks  |
January
30, 2006
Express Computer - Mumbai
Grupo Antolin, Pune, deployed SAP R/3
4.7 in a record time of nine weeks. The immediate
benefits are faster report generation and
better integration of its operational data
with that of its parent company in Spain,
says Abhinav Singh.
Grupo Antolin Pune Private Ltd [GAPPL), a
manufacturer of car interior products, has
deployed the SAP R/3 solution in a record
nine weeks. A subsidiary of Grupo Antolin,
Spain, the company earlier used Tally as its
accounting system. Most of its processes were
being done manually at its manufacturing unit
in Pune. Today, these are witnessing a transition
to a streamlined automated system. The ERP
system has helped the company integrate effectively
with its parent organisation, and also with
its units at 18 other locations across the
world.
Legacy
limitations
The company was using Tally as an accounting
package ever since the start of its operations
in India about eight years ago. This package
had its limitations as it was not effective
in capturing the production and the material
data, thus affecting production planning in
the company.
The data relating to depreciation and production
had to be manually entered into the system.
There was no integration between the information
(such as stock transfer and sales invoicing
data) at the company's warehouse in Chennai
and that at the Pune plant. The data relating
to annual returns and tax deduction certificates
had to be generated manually, making it a
tedious and lengthy task that required two
to three days for compilation. Besides, the
accounting package and the manual processes
were not integrated with those of the parent
company in Spain.
SAP, the chosen one
SAP was the only choice for Grupo
Antolin in India as the head office in Spain
and around 90 percent of its units located
worldwide were using it. Says Vilas Unavane,
Chief Executive Officer, GAPPL, "The
SAP package has been tried and tested by our
parent organisation as well as at the different
units of our company spread across the world.
SAP was the natural choice, hence we did not
evaluate any other package."
Implementation in record time
The company set a date for the implementation
of the SAP R/3 package, and collaborated with
Bristlecone, the systems integrator for the
project. It kicked off in mid October 2005
and was completed in December 2005. in just
nine weeks, thereby becoming one of the fastest
SAP ERP implementations for an SMB in the
Asia Pacific region. Around 18 people were
involved in the implementation exercise.
Bristlecone developed a specific module based
on SAP best practices incorporating the process
of delta customisation and having a prototype
approach that comprised pre configurations
of objects commonly required by auto ancillaries.
Unavane details, "During the implementation,
the team from Bristlecone consolidated the
fragmented documentation of processes which
had information scattered across non-integrated
systems. Some of the information needed to
be generated afresh. Uploading of all existing
and legacy data into the SAP system took just
two days, thus saving lot of implementation
time. The challenge was to manage the project
with multi skilled consultants."
During the implementation, some quick configuration
changes were made to directly demonstrate
the product processes onscreen to the project
team. This helped achieve a uniform understanding
of the intricacies of the project. As Unavane
explains it, "We imparted a weeklong
training for the core team which became the
focal point for achieving the go-live target.
In addition to the usual requirements of automation
and reporting, various internal controls were
expected to be implemented by the system."
Once user acceptance was achieved, the Bristlecone
team organised a cutover planning session
with its project team and company core-team
members. It conducted the session and drew
a day wise plan to ensure that the go-live
target of January 1, 2006 could be met.
As a typical SMB organisation, Grupo Antolin
did not have resources apportioned exclusively
for IT work. There was pressure to complete
yearend activities and collect all necessary
data for the system. These challenges notwithstanding,
the implementation team successfully uploaded
all data by the evening of January 1, which
coincided with the start of the new financial
year for GAPPL.
Error-free and timesaving
Post-implementation, a lot of expectations
from the package have come through for Grupo
Antolin in India. SAP has perfectly integrated
with the company's head office in Spain and
other locations across the world. Data relating
to depreciation and purchase orders is generated
within 30 minutes as against the two to three
days reported in the pre-SAP period. All the
information relating to the warehouse located
in Chennai is updated simultaneously, which
has made stock management efficient. Annual
returns and tax deduction certificates, manually
compiled earlier, are being automatically
generated now. The closing of account books
has been streamlined; earlier, data relating
to stocks and fixed assets had to be compiled
separately, but with the new system it can
be done simultaneously, hence the processes
are now error-free and take less time. Unavane
says, "We expect data accuracy, faster
collection, avoidance of duplication and total
data integration due to the SAP ERP system." |
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