Under the safe roof

The concept of "roof" in the practice of domestic business carries a meaning. Experience "BRAAS DSK-1" is an example of a successful combination of two different interpretations of it. On the one hand, the products of this company can actually provide your home a solid roof. On the other hand, rationally selected solutions in the automation of enterprise management helped to create a kind of "IT-roof" over the business, providing assurance of the functioning of the company, regardless of 'weather' in the market.

Do you know what "BRAAS"

"BRAAS" trade mark, behind which lurks the production of high quality tiles and so-called "FLEXINVEST", ie of various structural elements that allow you to create a full tiled roof. These types of products are necessary complements to each other, but the organization of production has its own specific . It is curious that three-quarters of the weight of tile, made on technology "BRAAS, is sand. The production process is not too complicated. It defines a sequence of operations: the formation of cement-sand mixture, adding dyes, stirring the mixture with water, outdoor painting, daily dry in a furnace; secondary coating; rapid drying in a hot oven; excerpt in stock for a set of concrete strength. The whole production process entirely fit into the framework of small automated line.

The resulting products are heavy (one apartment. Meter tile weighs approximately 45 kilograms) and relatively low selling price (6.12 euros per square meter). This requires the organization of production in small factories in the sand pits, closer to the consumer and to the sources of basic raw materials. Transportation tiles at a distance of more than 600 kilometers is economically disadvantageous. In contrast, "FLEXINVEST" preferably be carried out on several large factories and bring out to the place of sale.

That seemed so still a few years ago a family business BRAAS. However, at the turn of the century right to the trademark and all production moved to the international concern Lafarge, whose turnover in 2002 amounted to 14.6 billion euros. Concern has formed unit Lafarge Roofing appropriate profile with an annual turnover of 1,5 billion euros.

Adventures BRAAS in Russia

The project is the creation of the Russian branch was probably the last independent project of Braas. From the outset details of this project were significantly different from the familiar to the German side of the circuit. Traditionally, 100% of capital of any enterprise owned unit itself Braas. In the Russian version of the same company turned to local partners, as is made by house-building factory "DSK-1", the largest metropolitan builder. The Russian side provided part of the territory, capital construction and infrastructure provision; German "technology, manufacturing equipment, computer and software designed to support the business. The contribution of the Russian side and specificity rates for domestic transportation services possible to locate the plant in the city.

At present, already in the Lafarge, the company employs approximately 120 people, of whom 45 are employed in two-shift production. The range includes about 100 positions.

Scheme of the company's products, at first glance quite unusual, but a closer study is typical for the industry. On the one hand, the company has a very extensive network of dealers in most major cities in European Russia, interacting with offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar and Ekaterinburg. On the other hand, today, their activity is reduced to finding retail customers, their advice and "surprisingly" to the subsequent transfer of retail orders to the central office.

Usually this is done simply by fax. The central office staff member two-month operatsionistki treated approximately 1000 orders, each order includes a dozen positions. Also operatsionistki execute all documents for the shipment. Similarly organized the work of Lafarge Roofing, for example, the Benelux countries, where up to 70% of orders comes to the central office by fax, "even despite the presence of Internet-portal, which provides the possibility of their electronic location.

So irrational at first glance, the organization of work has a logical explanation. According to Dmitry Kryukov, Chief Information Officer BRAAS BSC-1, E-commerce is an appropriate solution for implementing a well-known client range. Examples of such products can serve as everyday consumer goods and autos. Roof "sufficiently complex object construction, to calculate it can only be prepared by an expert in working with the client. Any automation in this area, in particular the use of an independent consumer of CAD is generally ineffective. Each specific solution requires the involvement of a specialist in the calculation, unique and does not involve replication. Recall that we are talking about a tile roof installations for individual buildings. In addition, Russia has no culture of using tiles in the building "is not traditional for our country's material, which makes automation of the calculations even more challenging. (Incidentally, this fact causes the lack of domestic market to repair old tiled roofs and is not conducive to business growth.) Another characteristic of the domestic problem of the "carelessness of customers. Typical situation is when the orders are collected parts, changing product requirements, such as color, in progress order, sometimes even during shipment. At home, this tile production such situations can not even imagine. In the same conditions, the average domestic thousands of orders, multiplied by the numerous changes in their parameters, generates enough volume for a small production workflow and generates the specific requirements for information services.

Requirements Lafarge

Described the organization of business and character of its surroundings require competent IT support of business processes, in particular, flexible and efficient (in terms of achieving the objective) information system. The situation is further compounded by increased demands for Lafarge provided accounting and business management of a transnational nature. In particular, the leadership group is constantly struggling to improve efficiency, which requires a sound development of the reporting system. Work in this direction are collected in the draft Unified Reporting System, which is used when implementing software company Hyperion Solutions. At the moment, we solve the problem of reporting online. Now reporting on the performance of each company of the group is compiled monthly in the first decade following the reporting month. In statements include: balance, evaluation of profits and losses, the profitability of commodity groups, with an average value and discounts on product groups and regions; report on cost centers, or cash flows. As noted by Kryukov, following the requirements of management of Lafarge, the Russian subsidiary is obliged to reduce the preparation of monthly corporate reporting to one week.

Effective functioning of the enterprise requires a very thoughtful IT solutions, tailored to local business conditions. But this initiative and lively mind, domestic entrepreneurs run into pedantic Lafarge, seeks to standardize all aspects of the enterprise. According to Kryukov, standardization of information technologies within Lafarge, with varying degrees of detail deals with the construction of local networks, system and application software, computer platforms, security policy, e-business applications, business oriented like ERP and CRM, common to the entire group of applications, personnel management reporting and consolidation, as well as knowledge management.

In addition, each unit within the industrial group (their specialization cement, asbestos roofing, aggregates and concrete, respectively) also has its own additional standards, relating mainly to the software, taking into account specific industries, as well as issues that still are not standardized at the level of Lafarge.

It can be assumed that such a detailed standardization is partly due to an almost complete transfer of all information services in outsourcing. This reorganization was made in Lafarge in 1998. Was cut almost the entire IT staff, most of them found refuge in the bowels of IBM, and that it was from that time became a major partner of Lafarge. Availability of detailed and stringent standards allows a small group of IT managers to provide effective business processes information services. Creating efficient and very effective scheme of IT was the reason that in 2003, CIO of Lafarge, Dominique Malizh won the French title of CIO of the Year.

In the embrace of outsourcing

Put "BRAAS DSK-1" to the modern IT-solutions is instructive primarily because it largely reflects the problems encountered when trying to instill in the native soil of foreign business practices. At the time of formation of the German side has provided the Russian partners, as she thought, everything you need in the IT field. At the very powerful at that time IBM AS/400 server platform operated two small application program to support the logistics and financial accounting that have been successfully tested on all plants. Acquaintance with Russian specialists plunged into a deep depression. The first was written by a small German company special order Braas. It was characterized by complete closure and total compliance with the conditions of doing business in Germany. Particular disappointment has caused the closing procedure, which is inaccessible to modify all the entered information.

Accounting program was more comprehensive, but absolutely not localized. With it you can make a report to guide Braas, but to domestic accounts was not possible. As a result, before you start work, had to quickly equip an accountant. In a separate personal computer installed a version of accounting software family BEST.

The situation was quite spicy, and very importantly, it is not available to the understanding of the German partners. Unrealized potential powerful computer technology combined with the need to duplicate data entry, which is always fraught with inconsistencies and loss of efficiency.

Meanwhile, she Braas since 1996 tried to implement SAP R / 3. For Russian companies, this project was unacceptable. Main counterargument served as the high cost of implementation and maintenance. From the standpoint of Kryukov, SAP has not yet paid sufficient attention to the localization of the modules of greatest interest to enterprises, their size and profile resembling a branch Braas (primarily financial and accounting modules.) From his point of view, this is explained by the fact that the major SAP customers in the industrial sector "is a large manufacturing enterprises, which are mainly interested in the quality of the modules of production management and planning. In this sense, according to Kryukov, SAP and Oracle lose to Microsoft, which is more flexible working with partners and pays more attention to medium and small businesses.

Leadership of the Russian branch, it became clear that the salvation of the business is in their hands, and it was to seek a way out of difficult situations. At the time, managed to find only two decent localized solutions in the area of ​​the platform AS/400, but upon closer examination, and from them had to be abandoned. Acutely the question arose about the change of the platform and the transition to an entirely new solution. When considering the choice of supplier, "BRAAS DSK-1" have tried to focus mainly on the level of after sales service. Moreover, even if you have good support for a number of major suppliers excluded from consideration as a fear of the averaged service approach, which would not allow to take into account specifics of a particular company.

Source: Polyakov, K. / Chief Information Officer SUN TEAM Budinvest. 2004. № 3. C. 12-16