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Asian Paints : Gattu Goes Hi-tech

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DQI Bureau
New Update

It all began in 1999-2000. Asian Paints, one of the largest paint

manufacturing company in India embarked on a mission to automate its processes

and systems which later funded the companys growth spree through the new

millennium. Today, the company has one of the most mature IT footprints

supporting its operations in twenty countries, and managing thirty

paint-manufacturing facilities that serve consumers in more than sixty-five

countries.

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Challenges



A big IT challenge that the company was faced with recently was the

implementation of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform. According to

Manish Choksi, CIO, Asian Paints, the company has essentially been involved in

formulation management. The solution to manage these formulations was developed

a long time ago and was built on the Foxpro platform which was getting outdated.

Though the IT team had a large centralized pool of information through ERP and

SCM solutions on a new platform, the core R&D informationhow the products

should be manufacturedwas still on the legacy platform.

Manish Choksi, CIO, Asian

Paints
  • The PLM platform was aimed at eliminating

    the manual interface required to document all the product information and

    transfer it from the legacy platform to the new one
  • Deployed best of breed technologies which

    was a combination of the SAP PLM suite, Optiva, and ASD Software

Processes were ISO compliant but to a certain extent were manual in nature,

which meant data on formulations had to be transmitted physically by taking

several copies of the printouts as per the ISO records and then transmitted to

the plants. The problem lay in the fact that there was no capture of information

on how the formula was developed; there was no documentation on what processes

went into approving formulae; and post approval that formulation had to be

transferred manually which was time consuming and led to higher expenses. When

the product information was transmitted to the other IT systems, there was a

manual interface which took into account all the information being transferred.

So, there was a need to eliminate the manual interface and completely automate

the process.

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Choksi took a holistic look at the challenge around the management of

formulations and processes in the development arena. The team then went on a

search for a process for the right PLM platform and partnered with some large

vendors such as SAP and specialist companies in the space such as Optiva (Inforink)

and ASD Software, etc, to integrate the processes and software.

Success Beckons



The effort was to go in for best of breed solutions as they provided a

holistic vision and covered every pain point effectively. The PLM solution was

implemented 14-15 months ago and succeeded in delivering on all parameters that

were outlined at the beginning of the project such as quicker time to market of

the formulations, cost savings, reduction in paper consumption, streamlining all

processes onto a single platform and embedding information on formulae into

other solutions such as the ERP and SCM. On the whole, the project provided

end-to-end access and visibility to product information.

After the success of the PLM platform, Choksi and his team are in the process

of deploying a Master Data Management (MDM) platform from SAP Netweaver which is

all set to go live shortly. The platform will work in integration with the PLM

suite.

Going forward, the company plans to adopt a two-pronged strategyone is to

re-haul its existing supply chain and distribution system to achieve customer

intimacy and the other to develop high manufacturing capacities for future

growth. Over the next decade, the company plans to set-up a state-of-the-art

manufacturing facility in Rohtak, Haryana with four times the capacity of its

existing plants.

Priya Kekre



priyak@cybermedia.co.in

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