 "Adhunik Group In 2011: An IT Retrospective")
Adhunik Group is a Kolkata based business conglomerate that operates in businesses such as power, steel and mining. To handle multiple businesses demands a host of IT solutions to fulfil the typical needs of every business vertical. The group in 2011 implemented Microsoft Office 365 collaboration tool that cuts across businesses and enable them to co-create; GE Historian to rationalise industrial automation processes and High definition BOSCH cameras for video surveillance of plant sites. In addition, the company also implemented SAP ECC6 EHP5 for core business processes at group level, automation and integration of weigh bridges, faster and accurate recording of volume transits, BI Initiatives, Engineering Documents Management Systems, Predictive and Prescriptive analytics and more.
Adding A New Dimension Through Collaboration
Collaboration plays an important role in today’s times when there is constant need for interaction between executives of various departments. However, simple interaction tools such as emails just don’t fit the bill.
To overcome this, Microsoft Office 365 was taken into consideration. The company realised the importance of making employees collaborate in the course of running many projects that had set deadlines.
The group will soon commission a 4x270 megawatt power project in Padampur. Just a day’s slippage will cost dearly to the overall cost of the project. The employees are scattered across the country. Decisions have to be taken with the consultation of the senior management team even while they are on the move or away from the workplace. So, why not bring anytime, anywhere concept for collaboration?
After sifting through solutions from many vendors, the company finally decided to join hands with Microsoft and implemented Office 365 on Cloud with pay-per-use-payment terms. There are laptops, desktops all spread across various offices. The agreement allows to bring in continuous license upgrade, training, etc.
In addition to the collaboration aspect, Office 365 has been interfaced with SAP. So the key business drivers and related information with source and application of funds can be populated on a weekly basis and sent to the concerned stakeholders.
Before this happened, decisions were being made on gut feel and not on actual facts and figures. The company faced the problem of having many versions of the truth.
‘GE Historian’ Rationalises Industrial Automation Processes
The IT – Industrial Automation integration is an interesting concept wherein the ERP is integrated with other systems such as vendor collaboration hub, employee collaboration with knowledge management, customer excellence enablers, employee self-service, etc.
As a part of product excellence initiatives, the group has tied up with GE to implement ‘GE Historian’, a tool that captures data and conducts analysis in collaboration with our production team. The concerned person, even while sitting in the office away from the factory, can see the operations on the shop floor on a LCD screen. He can also take corrective action to control the temperature, pressure of the relative machinery, devices, etc.
These tools create a dashboard, which acts as an extended control room for the experts to monitor the shop floor, do analysis, give feedback and initiate a corrective action. Technology can definitely help ensure efficiency and save resources. And in the manufacturing industry, even a 1 or 0.5 percent saving in resource usage can have a huge plus impact on the overall financials.
High Definition BOSCH Cameras Enable Surveillance
Another area where the group has invested in 2011 is surveillance. High definition cameras with a razor sharp screen resolution and advanced tilt and zoom capabilities have been installed. In our case the plant is at a distant location. So cameras are mounted at the right spots at the right angles that enable the supervisor to monitor the plant from a remote location. It gives a very lucid picture of all the processes happening at the steel and power site while a coal-based power plant is getting commissioned. Video-based surveillance will see further penetration in the manufacturing industry.
A major impeding factor though is the cost of buying these technologies. In times of economic uncertainties, companies will be averse to anything that has a cost. But if you really look at it, the cost of buying these technologies will be only a fraction to even half the losses incurred in wastage and unreasonable use of resources.
SAP Implementation For Pellet Plant At Jamshedpur
The company has rolled out SAP ECC6 to cover all key business processes at its newly commissioned Pellet plant at Jamshedpur, which is the largest in Jharkhand with 1.2 megatonne capacity.
SAP Integration With Weigh Bridges With Built-in Intelligence
In the steel industry, 70 percent of the cost is approximately that of raw material. Automating and integrating inbound and outbound logistics with weigh bridge with an built-in intelligence to control truck movements with an automation of Excise transaction recording was a big challenge. Adhunik Group could implement this with the help of a partner Vcentric from Hydrabad. Not only has it saved a lot of manpower, but also has resulted into accuracy and speed of operations - an example of doing more with less.