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One of Indias largest cement manufacturing companies, Ambuja Cements has taken many IT initiatives to integrate the latest technologies into its operational systems, so as to reap business benefits at every level of the supply chain. The IT team at Ambuja has always been forthcoming in experimenting new technologies. For eg, in 2001 the cement company was one of the first to deploy Red Hat Linux at remote sites for critical business applications.

Trend-setter
Last year, Ambuja Cements launched Connect India Plus, which has proved to be one of the most significant, large scale IT deployment within the company so far. As the companys manufacturing plants are located in remote areas where the scope of connectivity was minimal, the resources, namely hardware, software and people were located at plant sites. The overall integration of data was transferred and carried out in batches. During 2006, Ambuja decided to go for SAP as it is a standard system for all group companies.

Within two years, Ambuja rolled out Connect India Plus that was conceived as an ERP implementation program for installing SAP with all its modules at 200 locations across India and 2,500 users with a single instance on a server in Mumbai. The project kicked off on June 1, 2007 and went live on August 1, 2008a period of just fourteen months.

Bihag Lalaji, CIO, Ambuja Cement

Deployed Connect India Plusan SAP ERP implementation program across 200 locations to connect 2,500 users The enterprise wide ERP went live in a period of just 14 months and helped Ambuja easily align with other group company processes

One of the prime reasons for deploying this ERP was to have a uniform, standard, and ubiquitous system across the organization not only in India but abroad, so that Ambuja Cement could easily align with other group company processes, says Bihag Lalaji, CIO, Ambuja Cement. The project also promised a reduction in cost of operations and maintenance of the IT system. It would also enable Ambuja Cements to respond quickly to changes in the business environment.

Challenges
However, the IT team faced immense challenges while implementing this enterprise-wide ERP. Since the company had multiple plants, each with their own computer systems and processes, there was a need to create a single business blueprint across the organization. On the people front, there was a need to integrate individuals with diverse background to be able to work as a focused team.

Besides the core team consisting of 75 members, there were 150 people involved indirectly or directly for data migration, training, etc. All this required enormous amount of man-management skills. Infrastructure refreshes was another critical challenge as the IT team took on the task of setting up an adequate and reliable WAN using MPLS and VSATS, connecting 200 locations including factories, bulk cement terminals, grinding units, regional offices and warehouses.

Data migration was another major challenge since data had to be imported from eight different legacy systems. The standard master data codes had to be mapped with the legacy codes and data had to be updated at one go. We had a dedicated team and full support of business users from various locations, who worked relentlessly to achieve this mammoth task, says Lalaji.

After the successful implementation of SAP, the company has been exploring some cutting edge technologies to improve supply chain. It has implemented a sophisticated smart-card based vehicle tracking system to improve operational efficiency in terms of cycle-time monitoring and fleet management. This has helped the company determine the exact cycle for a vehicle carrying cement from the factory to a destination and carrying raw material as a return load back to the factory. The information is dispatched to customers via SMS.

Priya Kekre
priyak@cybermedia.co.in

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