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| Case Study |
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Patni helps global manufacturing giant
fix ERP financial glitch |
By leveraging Patni's Baan expertise,
a global leader in manufacturing Powder Metal components solved
a critical problem which had put the financial reporting of
the company at risk.
The Client
Part of a Fortune 500
conglomerate, the client is a
leading manufacturer of
Powder Metal components.
The Challenge
The client had gone live on Baan in two of its manufacturing plants in India.
However, due to improper implementation, the client was facing critical
problems. The implementation was in such a mess that the internal center of
excellence from the parent organization who reviewed the implementation
had termed it as "unsalvageable". Some of the problems included: |
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Users were not able to view basic
information like exact profits, status
of raw materials, finished goods, Work-In-Process (WIP),
stores and
spares and actual liabilities towards suppliers and
actual receivables
from customers |
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Supplier checks could not be generated
for more than 5 invoices of the
supplier |
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Inaccurate documents and checks were
sent to banks and suppliers |
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Inaccurate Purchase Orders were getting
generated. |
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As the client had a short time frame for correcting these anomalies before its
yearly financial audit, it needed the expertise of a partner who could guide
the company effectively.
The Solution
To help the client achieve its objective in the desired timeframe, Patni adopted a twophased
approach:
Diagnosis Phase: In this phase, Patni conducted a one-week assessment to find out business
processes in Baan and the real pain-points in business processes. Among other issues, the
assessment exercise discovered massive data corruption and mismatch. The team then
prioritized the pain-points and presented a roadmap to the customer on repairing the
damage.
Repair Phase: This phase consisted of guiding the customer on quick correction of data,
customizing the configuration/setup in Baan and conducting trainings as required. The
following actions were executed in this phase: |
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Data Correction: After replicating the environment on
test servers, simulation, testing and validation of the
solution was done. Additionally, a set of tools and utilities
were developed which pointed out the exact source where
data used to get corrupted. This enabled the team to ensure
error free data. |
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Re-configuring the mapping in Baan: Elaborate configuration
setup in Baan was carried out to reduce steps in processing
of various transactions in Baan. This increased the processing
efficiency considerably. This was almost akin to a complete
reimplementation of the system |
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Conducting Trainings: Focused trainings were conducted
for key users and end users to enlighten them about the
new setup. Another objective was to educate the users
about the correct processes and exception handling mechanism
so that the data entry errors would reduce. The key users
were trained to take care of the exceptions and incorrect
data entry. |
The Technology
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Baan |
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The Benefits
Patni's focused approach helped the client resolve the critical problems
related to financial reporting, much ahead of the financial audit. Other
significant benefits include:
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The client was able to meet the regulatory needs of
a year-end audit |
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Improved decision-making based on the correct supplier
position
immediately led to a change in the procurement strategy.
This gave the
client potential savings of around $150,000 per year |
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Accurate Inventory Valuation lead to better inventory
management |
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Reduced efforts in generation of checks and subsequently,
verifying
amounts on checks to suppliers and accompanying documents |
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Elimination of data related errors aided the management
to take
accurate and timely decisions. |
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