Peer-to-Peer

ERP aids in managing expansion

On an expansion spree, Anjani Technoplast has deployed an ERP solution to effectively manage its business growth and meet customer demands. By Priyanka Akhouri

With four existing manufacturing units—three based in Noida and one in Uttaranchal, Anjani was experiencing rapid growth in its operations. The company faced challenges in streamlining the production planning process taking into account fluctuating customer demands and sales requirements. The existing system did not provide capabilities to adapt flexibly to changing customer demands once the production process began.

Raj Kishore Gupta, Managing Director, Anjani said, “At this stage of expansion, the projected needs of the business had outgrown the potentials of the existing system, and there was a demand for a robust, globally proven, and an accepted system to cater to our various business requirements.”

Anjani envisioned setting up of material requirement planning functions for better visibility of the requirements in order to procure critical raw materials and reduce inventory. “We needed to minimize the inventory buildups for seasonal products. Integration of various functions like finance/controlling, projects, production, materials management, sales and distribution and quality assurance in order to improve productivity,” added Gupta.

In order to run the business successfully the company needed to meet the pain points and realized that it required an ERP solution. Gupta revealed, “To run the business more efficiently and cost effectively, there was a requirement to provide budgeted ownership and accountability to department managers. This could only be achieved by providing more timely and accurate information, which was not currently available on time.” The company also needed to have strong process flows in place, ensuring full compliance with corporate governance, Indian taxation rules, and export and import regulations.

Making the right choice

The company’s in house developed applications on the FoxPro/Oracle platform, however, lacked the desired integration capabilities to optimize business performance. “ATL was earlier using some customized application for managing its entire process. The IT department was actively involved in preparation of management information service (MIS) need based reports. Focusing on the anticipated growth, Anjani decided to move onto a more scalable, flexible, and a solution capable of adapting to the changing business needs,” said Gupta. Since the company was in search of an ERP solution to deliver strong online reporting and analytical capabilities, SAP ERP ECC 6.0 was the best fit for Anjani.

The SAP solution covers all the enterprise requirements in the areas of finance, costing, logistics, production, maintenance, projects and inventory management. “We knew that implementing a best-in-class business solution such as SAP would benefit us vastly since the added advantages would lead to integration of applications and transparency in operations,” added Gupta.

The SAP solution was deployed on December 1, 2007. Anjani went live with the solution in a fast-track manner within five months with Birlasoft as its implementation partner. Commenting on the implementation at Anjani, Rajesh Devnani, SAP Practice Head, at Birlasoft stated, “The successful implementation at Anjani further signifies our focus towards serving the SMB market with its distinctive and challenging needs. We are seeing significant traction in the services from mid-market focused players who can deliver quantifiable benefits in an accelerated manner at competitive price points.”

The solution helps in the discrete manufacturing process, material requirement planning, capacity requirements planning, consumption-based planning, batch management, quality planning, inspection and control, planning and scheduling, sales and distribution with complete exports functionality. SAP ERP helps in reducing the production and delivery cycle, leading to improved visibility and coordination in the business process. There is rationalization on inventory holding costs and improves the ability to monitor cash flows at a granular level.

Hurdles encountered in the implementation process

The implementation process was not a cake walk for Anjani. The company faced problems as the end-users were not fully trained, errors were retrieved in mastering data, and at some places the business process was not clear, properly configured and tested.

Change in the consultant’s role also led to complexities in the business process. “Since so many challenges were being witnessed at the implementation stage we realized that some necessary steps were required to reduce the challenges,” said Gupta.

Anjani geared up by starting with the regular follow-ups with core team members, provided the end-users proper training, extended proper tracking and monitoring of each activity, evaluated issues, and ensured close interaction of consultants and core team members.

Key areas of implementation and benefits achieved SAP-ERP at Anjani is used in the following areas:-

• Financial Accounting (FI)
• Controlling (CO)
• Sales and Distribution (SD)
• Materials Management (MM)
• Production Planning (PP)
• Quality Management (QM)
• Plant Maintenance (PM)
• Project Systems (PS)
• HR and Payroll

According to Gupta, the solution deployed is a seamless integrated ERP solution that will provide proper security and control over the business processes. It streamlines and standardizes the processes across ATL and has enabled us to shift the focus to process orientation.

The SAP solution enables integration between various manufacturing locations, branches, and head office. It provides transparency in operations, eliminates duplication of efforts, and helps in budget control. “With this implementation we can capture and track the possible information from the point it is created. This will thereby allow the team to focus on controlling, strategizing, and managing information, rather than spending time on collating data,” he said.

Moreover, the company reveals that this solution has succeeded in providing Anjani a platform for scaling up the business in terms of growth, diversification, expansion, mergers and acquisitions.

Elimination of data redundancy from all the processes is another aspect that will help the employees of the company to work smarter. “Improvements are also being witnessed overall owing to the robust integration capabilities of SAP. It is still in early stages to effectively quantify the benefits but we expect the implementation to positively enhance the operations efficiency going forward,” said Gupta.

The company claims that the implementation is progressively providing enhanced benefits in all functional areas. It has enabled the entire operational data to be consolidated and integrated on one common platform from a financial perspective. Moreover, the company also expects a change when it comes to better compliance delivery, improvements in quality and a better alignment of production capabilities with the firm and forecasted sales. However, the company this year further plans to consolidate its operations on SAP.

priyankaakhouri@gmail.com