Annual Report 2008-2009 - Bharat Petroleum

of employees in a proactive manner to listen to them,
understand their issues and concerns and resolve them.
Keeping in mind this key responsibility, the ESE Cell
launched an Employee Assistance Programme called
ESE-Roshni in 2008-09. This is another first for any
oil company in India. Through the program, counselling
services are provided to the management staff and their
dependent family members by professional counsellors
at no cost to them. This helps a person to cope more
effectively with everyday issues that adversely impact
his/her work performance, health and wellbeing. The
counselling services are made available through three
different channels; face to face counselling (seeing the
counsellor in person), telephonic counselling by talking to
the counsellor over telephone and by writing the problem
and seeking counselling through email. The program
has received an excellent response, with a large number
of staff and their family members having registered to
use the service. These measures and initiatives have
reinforced BPCL as a caring and employee friendly
organisation.
INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Information Technology is a key area of strength and
hence, a competitive advantage for BPCL. Investment
has been made during the year in implementing various
strategic initiatives and process improvements.
During the year, the upgrade of the non-HR SAP
environment to ERP ECC 6.0 was completed successfully
and subsequently, the SAP R/3 production system was
migrated to the Unicode system. BPCL has commenced
the implementation of Governance, Risk and Compliance
(GRC) solution of SAP, which is an essential step in providing
system based controls and risk mitigation mechanism
while handling business processes. The “Access control”
component of the GRC solution was implemented in the
LPG business as a pilot. This will be rolled out across
businesses in 2009-10. The Transportation Planning &
Vehicle Scheduling (TP&VS) component of SAP Supply
Chain Management was implemented in Jalgaon LPG plant
for packed cylinder dispatches and will be extended to all
LPG locations during 2009-10.
The year saw the launch of the business application
centric SAP based portal (myPortal) in April 2009. The
Employee Self Service application for management staff
was commissioned by migrating processes relating to
employee claims and reimbursements to the ‘myPortal’
platform. In the coming days, myPortal would become
the major application portal aggregating information from
different SAP and non-SAP systems. The information
dashboard for top management was also launched
through ‘myPortal’.
A number of initiatives aimed at achieving process
improvements were completed. These include the
roll out of the Planned Delivery Programme solution
in the retail locations of the Northern and Southern
regions and implementation of B2B solution for
transactions with IOC. BPCL has introduced an
innovative and indigenously developed state-of-the-art
re-fuelling system known as Apron Fuel Management
System (AFMS) to cater exclusively to the aviation industry.
This complete Point of Sale (POS) solution significantly
reduces the fuelling time to the aircrafts and generates
Fuel Delivery Tickets without manual intervention, thereby
facilitating the electronic exchange of data.
In line with the efforts to support all business applications,
redesign and revamp of the BPCL network connecting
major locations through Multi Protocol Label Switching
(MPLS) VPN technology Network was undertaken. MPLS
is aimed at augmenting the network infrastructure. MPLS
provides for increased bandwidth, better uptime and
better manageability. Already 124 locations are put on
MPLS links during the year, with further plans to expand
the same to a total of 185 locations. This has released
the hitherto primary VSAT connections which have been
redirected to connect BPCL’s Retail Outlets. As on date,
427 outlets have been connected through VSAT for
betterment of customer services and also to support
new outlet based applications. The state-of-the-art VSAT
hub site was upgraded with the latest technology. This
has contributed to capacity enhancement, reliability
and reachability. The In-Route bandwidth capacity has
increased from 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps with better uptime
commitment during the rainy season.
BPCL’s foray into the SAP training arena continued and
BPCL’s SAP Training C entre at Mumbai offered various
programmes for external participants. Besides, BPCL
continued to deploy its specialised resources to leading
clients in India and abroad.
In the current scenario, where security of the Information
Technology environment is critical, BPCL has continued to
focus on securing its corporate IT assets and applications
through client level security under the initiative of Endpoint
Security systems.
HEALTH, SAFETY, SECURITY & ENVIRONMENT
During the year, enhanced efforts continued to address
Health, Safety, Security and Environment matters and
attain sustainable performance at all workplaces and
beyond. Employee engagements were sought to be
achieved through active participation and sharing best
practices across businesses and entities. Training courses
and workshops for company employees with classroom
& field training programmes were imparted during the
30 Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited