ERP – VISAKA EXPERIENCE

48th National Cost convention 18-20th Jan’ 07 / 20th Jan’ 07

 Company profile
Year 1985 Year 2007
Business Cement sheets Cement sheets, Yarn, Garments

Turnover Rs. 90 million Rs. 4000 million

No. of plants 1 9
Locations 1 state (A.P.) 6 states
Warehouses / 5 35
depots
No. of people 230 1600
No. of dealers 200 4000

Professionally managed
Highly rated by Banks and Institutions
Won awards from FAPCCI, Govt. of A.P., Govt. of T.N.,
All India Manufacturers Association and many others
Corporate Social Responsibility - Visaka Charitable Trust
 PHI LO SOPHY

Extensively use automation in all

operations
 PHILOSOPHY
From 1995 till 2002, our company did extremely well,
meeting USTER 5% International quality norms in the yarn
division & highest productivity in the building products
industry.

Visaka always believed in applying the modern technology

& tools for production, system & quality controls.

Visaka has always been a target driven organization, setting

bench marks & reviewing each month the actuals against
bench marks for all its operations, systems & quality.

Visaka extended the same philosophy to its processes &

information systems and implemented ERP. This helped
Visaka to bring world-class to all its functions.
 Pain areas which led to discussion of
ERP & networking.
Each Factory tried its own way of localising the programme & there was
no common programme available for unified enhancement.
The programmer’s load was enormous due to expected enhancements &
expansions going at a faster pace.
Whenever there was a need for information, a new report was required to
be developed. This delayed the use of information for decision making.
As there was a gap between the records available with accounting &
marketing, there was a constant battle in reconciling the receivables
(outstanding) & hence the focus was on tallying the data & not on
receivables.
Costing information was compiled manually with too many assumed
provisions for each item.
For each month book closure, programmer was required & it was a
lengthy process.

Periodic meetings were held only to discuss how to keep the data
updated.
 HISTORY
1985 - 1st Year of operations – COBOL -
Outsourced

1989 - In house development on COBOL /

D-base.

1996 - In house development on Oracle 6.

One of the first few companies in

Hyderabad on Oracle.

1997 - Migrated to Oracle 7.2 and later to

Oracle 8i.
 RATIONALE FOR ERP
 Total Integration of business processes

 Online up-to-date information for effective decision

making

 Scalable for future developments

 Internationally accepted

 Best business practices and work flows.

 Better corporate image, especially, with investors.

 Possibility for outsourcing in future.

 IMPLEMENTATION
 Evaluation of various ERP’s – Selected Oracle Apps.

 Vendors – Hardware & Software.

 Implementation Partners.

 Business Process Review

 Process Mapping.

 Training

 Pilot, Test Run & Live

allKey Feature: Big Bang approach – Simultaneous Implementation of

Modules across all Businesses / Locations

Total commitment of Top Management.

 Business Process Review
Strength of Core Team: 22 as against
recommendation of 4.

Composition: Representation of a combination

of businesses/ functions/ locations.

Business Process Study: Detailed

presentations / discussions of all business
processes along with consultants from Sonata.
All departmental heads were compulsory
participants.

Requirement Specifications: The Company’s

requirement is documented.
 Process Mapping & Pilot
Instance
The requirements are mapped onto
the product

Gap between requirements and the

product finalized but not clearly
documented.

Pilot instance developed.

Key Feature: No Customizations agreed or

 Training
Extensive emphasis on training across the
organisation.

Different inputs to core team and end users.

Conducted at corporate office and at all locations

Conducted by special external Oracle Apps

Experts

Also Conducted by Sonata consultants.

Final training of users by core team

 Testing And Go Live
Not extensively tested, only base cases tested.

Inadequate time allocated.

Declared live on 01-04-2004

Lead to many problems in live instance.

Completed 1st closing up to December 2004 in February

2005

Completed March Accounts in June’05 addressing all

major problems

Re-configuration and work arounds continued upto

Sept 2005
 EXPERIENCE
Ini tial s et ups we re ina ccur ate.

Ev en c ore users no t fully i nv olve d i n s etups.

Re po rts we re not p la nned ini tia lly t o che ck t he o utp ut.

ER P con sult ant s als o di d no t ha ve f ul l k no wle dg e o f a ll

featu re s.

Fre que nt cha nge o f E RP c ons ulta nts b y So na ta d ue t o

att riti on.

No Pa ralle l r un- Le gacy t otall y dis co nt inu ed e xce pt

sales inv oici ng.
 EXP ER IENCE
Due to inadequate testing coupled with the above, faced
lots of surprises.

For most problems Technical Assistance Request (TARs)

had to be raised.

Inordinate delay in resolving some TAR’s by Oracle

Could not check the output until 6 months after going live.

No process in place to check whether data being entered is

accurate.

Connectivity was slow and had to be strengthened.

 TURNAROUND
Initially developed basic control reports to check the data.

Core cell formed for identification of set up related and

data entry problems.

Set up problems rectified on war footing.

Set up teams for simultaneous rectification of past data

and checking of current data for each and every user on a
daily basis.

Staff worked for 16 to 18 hours continuously for 6 months.

Tremendous stress during this period

 TURNA ROUND
Made arrangements for 24 hour stay for some people in the
office.

Shifted people from different locations to corporate office

for rectification of data.

Simultaneously developed most of the critical reports.

Tremendous sense of responsibility shown by Sonata and

all users.

Special cash awards given for all involved.

Successfully closed December-2004 in February- 2005 and

March-2005 in June - 2005
 Ti meli nes & c ost s

Estimate Actual

Time 4 months 12 months

Cost Rs. 10 million Rs. 50 million

 Benef its
 Focus shifted from function view to process view.

 Total integration of different functions

 Elimination of duplication and redundancy

 Online accurate information.

 Higher level of security, accuracy, stability and

scalability

 Raised the knowledge and skill set of employees

significantly.
 Benefits
Comparision of costs and revenues across Businesses,
Plants and Years made simple.

Helped employees to acquire end-to-end knowledge of

processes.

Aided employees to understand the criticality,

interrelationship / Interdependency of various functions

Enabled management to take a top down view of

operations and timely decisions.

Improved the over all company culture.

Procedures followed became uniform across the

organization.
 Limitations
Being an international package requirements of local tax laws not
adequately met.

Increase in employee turnover.

Some work around and customisations unavoidable

Setups and data entry, have to be accurate-otherwise rectification is

difficult.

High implementation and maintenance cost

Frequent upgradations compulsory – support will not be available for old

versions.

Customisations have to be redone, whenever upgradations are done.

Most of the reports have to be customized.

Scarcity of skilled man power.

 Conclusion
With India and Indian businesses becoming
increasingly globalised and integrated with the
rest of the world, ERP is no longer a cost-
benefit decision.

It is a philosophy, a culture based on which

organisations are evaluated and valued.

It is increasingly becoming a mandatory

prerequisite for professional, organised
sustainable business.