Automating Auto
For the auto and auto ancillary industry, 2005-06 saw the next wave of IT investments into areas like CRM, IT standardization across the partners and third parties' systems along with integration. The initial wave involved getting the end-to-end basic transaction systems in place, which was essentially the ERP. Following this was opening up of the organization's boundaries to include partners like dealers and suppliers. This year the agenda on hand was integrating the dealer, supplier and enterprise systems into one seamless system.

With the basic supply chain systems in place for most companies, the next 'big' roll out area for the auto sector was Customer Relationship Management. Companies realized the need to know immediately from the field what was the customer feedback on quality, design, etc. Differentiation from competition happened in terms of how they serviced the customers. 

With the outsourcing trend gaining prominence, auto ancillaries were becoming more prominent entries in the whole automobile value chain. As part of assembling was moving out to the ancillaries they were no more single part suppliers. This was driving a wave of IT adoption that went beyond basic automation to the adoption of sophisticated design systems as well.

The Tech Behind Oil & Gas
The increasing IT adoption in the process industry was primarily due to the activities of the oil & gas sector. Like most other manufacturing concerns, the oil & gas companies had their processes all marked out and managed smoothly with their ERP implementations. While ONGC specialized in exploration, GAIL fell in the middle category of purifiers, while companies like Indian Oil, followed by Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum were the leading refining and distribution companies. Most of these companies had SAP implementation covering all business areas across their entire geography, accompanied by the implementation of the Business Information Warehouse, CRM and Supplier Relationship management systems.

Vendors like SAP, Oracle, HP and Microsoft provided customized applications for managing organization-wide processes, while providing vertical specific applications for oilfield connectivity, refinery plant floor operations, project intelligence for large capital infrastructure projects and plant floor security. The other important deployments included oil/gas management systems and Geographic Information Systems.

Oil and gas companies acquired in 2005-06 the ability to monitor rigs remotely, collaborate cross-company and around the world, and diagnose potential refinery equipment problems even before they occurred. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems were being used, which were specialized computer-based automated control systems that monitored and controlled the transport of gas through pipelines, and provided the two basic functions of real time monitoring. SCADA and Exploration and Planning systems were unique to the vertical and not available indigenously. During the year, they were being sourced from international companies like Paradigm, WesternGeco and Foxboro.

Rajneesh De
rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1  2