about berco - Berco S.p.A

SPECIAL
Focus On
the second operational prototype is under way. As you
can see from the diagram on the previous page, the
official go-live of the new system is planned for August
2012. The accounting and finance modules will be
activated at the end of September, to coincide with the
start of the new fiscal year. All customers and suppliers
will be formally asked to organise their delivery schedules
in good time, to reduce the possible problems of the
migration process to a minimum. SAP best practice
actually recommends the early acquisition of all supplies
and the early planning of all deliveries to customers in
relation to the new system's go-live period.
Double interview with Luca Baraldi, director and coordinator of the company restructuring plan, and Giovanni Landi,
SAP implementation Project Manager
Giovanni Landi,
Information Service &
Data Security Manager
Giovanni Landi, you are the
Project Manager for the
implementation of SAP. What has
driven Berco to take up this
challenge
”The Berco group has grown
greatly in recent years, and in it
there are heterogeneous elements
that have objective interfacing
difficulties. We are fully aware of the need to integrate
the management systems of all the company structures,
and we've decided to do it using the same system that
our stockholder has been using for years in the main
companies in the ThyssenKrupp group.”
Luca Baraldi, you have been given the important task
of directing and coordinating the company restructuring
plan. Is the decision to adopt SAP an integral part of
this plan
”If Berco is to continue growing and improving its
performance, it needs to have a high level of integration
between the different stages of the supply chain.
The structural model for the Berco of tomorrow must
be based on instruments of proven effectiveness.
SAP is universally acknowledged to be the system that
best responds to these needs.”
What benefits will the adoption of SAP bring to Berco
Baraldi: ”SAP regulates the ways that information is
recorded and exchanged within a business, and
guarantees that all the data required for any operation
are available at the time the operation has to be
performed.
As well as increasing efficiency, this also increases
management's knowledge. If each phase of a process
is monitored, the people in charge of that processes
performance will be able to identify the bottlenecks
and act in time to remove them.”
Landi: ”The key word is knowledge. An integrated system
encourages the adoption of c ommon working methods,
more oriented to mutual cooperation.
Each user is made to see his or her work in a wider
context, and to realise that the consequences of his or
her actions must necessarily affect the next stage of
the process flow.”
At the ends of the supply chain there
are the customers and the suppliers.
What impact will SAP have on them
Baraldi: ”Actually, SAP is already
standard practice in our industry.
Many customers of primary
importance have turned to SAP for
the renewal of their IT systems.
Potentially, the integration between
Luca Baraldi,
Operations Director
Berco and these partners will be perfect. For all the others,
from the very outset Berco will be able to give faster
feedback and greater reliability in purchasing schedules(for
suppliers)and delivery schedules(for customers).”
Landi: ”We aim to automate as many external data
exchanges as possible, especially with raw materials
suppliers.
At the same time, we'll be able to acquire orders from
very big OEM customers by means of EDI transfer
procedures, reducing manual intervention to a minimum.
Greater end-to-end integration of supply chain processes
and rapid and precise information availability will facilitate
the accurate scheduling and performance of operations
in all areas.”
So far so good. Is there a negative side
Baraldi: ”A project on this scale involves a certain amount
of risk. In particular, in the data migration stage from
the old process to the new one and in the initial periods
of using SAP, there can be inefficiencies and slow-ups.
Preparations need to be made well in advance, working
together with customers and suppliers and creating special
safety stocks.
Shrewd, pragmatic risk management will help us to
minimise the transitory negative impact.
Even more important is the careful assessment of possible
interference and frictions between the SAP project and
all the other restructuring projects, especially those
initiated in recent years.
Often, these projects have the same goals as SAP, but
with very different methods.”
Landi: ”We're making big efforts to bridge the organisational
gaps that came to light in the project analysis stages.
Introducing SAP doesn't mean just updating our IT systems.
It means changing our way of working, transforming our
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