Three-way Benefit

size="4">National
Factory for Can Ends Limited (NAFCEL), is a major profit-making
manufacturing firm at Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They are into
the manufacturing of tin-opener for a leading soft-drink vendor and
wanted an ERP system which could replace their old system, as it was
an isolated model designed to meet the need of one particular
division of the organization.The factory has a wide- range of
customer strength of various established brands like Pepsi,
Coco-Cola, etc. There was a communication gap amongst the departments
in the factory with their earlier ERP system. The situation was
such, that an employee in the manufacturing department was not able
to find the product movement in the sales team.

size="4">In
such a situation, Chennai based Kaar technologies was approached.
Kaar Technologies had a rich experience in implementing such projects
for various customers in sectors like education, construction and
manufacturing. Kaar Technologies and Al-Bilad Arabia, Alkhobar,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, together came up with a solution and
implemented it successfully.

DEPLOYMENT

size="4">The
deployment was made in two phases. Initially, the team in Kaar
Technologies created an ERP integrating all the departments in the
organization. “We made sure that the status of even a single opener
which lets of a machine should be available for all those who want to
access the status,” says N Ratnakumar, CMO, Kaar Technologies.
Also, there was a non-ERP process already been used in the
organization which was used to count every single opener which drops
out of the machine.

size="4">The
newly-created ERP system was connected with the existing non-ERP
system so that every opener was counted and was easily accessible to
all those who wanted to see that. Later, the complete ERP system was
customized to meet the requirements of the client and was implemented
successfully. After completion, there was an open ERP system right
from manufacturing till the invoice got ready.

THREE-IN-ONE
ADVANTAGE

size="4">There
were three benefits of deploying this. Primarily, time saving to a
large extent! It was one of the key factors of the deployment.
Earlier, for every particular number of production from various
units, one person had to make an entry for the total number of
items. However, after the deployment was made, since the new-ERP and
the earlier system were integrated, the counting was done
automatically which saved time and manpower to a great extent.
Secondarily, as an innovation, a unique identification for the
openers, bar-code system was introduced.

size="4">Through
this, every product had an identification number, through which, any
small defect could be identified uniquely. And the final advantage
was to meet the changing rates of the aluminium foil in the global
level. There was an issue earlier, where the rates of aluminium
differed during the manufacturing time and while raising the invoice,
which resulted in much confusion. Since the openers were made in
aluminium foil, this was an immediate consideration. By using the ERP
system, all the containers, using the barcode will be connected to
the website of London Metal Exchange, which has the day-to-day rate
of aluminium foil. After applying that, the process was made much
easier for the accounts team to raise an invoice with the rate of the
foil on that particular day. These aforesaid advantages made the
process much easier and today, the supply chain process right from
manufacturing till the sale of product is working perfectly without
any grim.

CHALLENGES
ENCOUNTERED

size="4">The
deployment as such was one of the key challenges faced by the service
provider. “To monitor the process right from the initial stage till
the products are sold, the role of an ERP is inevitable. To make it
work perfectly was a great challenge for us initially,” Ratnakumar
says. He also added that there were further other challenges like
making SAP favorable to the local rules and regulations of the
country where it was deployed.

“ size="4">However,
a new method called Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC)
is a feature we added in the process which alerts the concerned
authority on any issue which disturbs the production. Say, for
example, if there is a problem related to power-supply, immediately,
the concerned department will be alerted on that and also the
mechanism will provide immediate solution by displaying on the
screen,” Ratnakumar adds further. During the deployment, Kaar
Technology witnessed another major challenge, of the availability of
limited resources.

size="4">FURTHER
PLANS

size="4">One
of the lessons learnt from this deployment is the third party system
integration using SAP MII and FTP concept. Also, Saudi Arabia Payroll
has been implemented for the first time, and automation of production
processes to the maximum in order to avoid manual inputs using MII
was also learnt by Kaar Technologies from this deployment. “Another
major lesson we learnt from this deployment was that manufacturing is
very high-speed and any ERP has to be customized so as to meet the
expectations of the client,” Ratnakumar says. He further added,
that in future, having this as an experience, the organization will
plan for a more aggressive entry into the Middle East and explore
opportunities there. “Already we are doing good in Saudi Arabia and
have just explored some opportunities in Qatar. We want to explore
more particularly the Middle East countries where opportunities are
aplenty,” Ratnakumar concludes.