October 25, 2007 IBS, Russia’s leading player in the IT and consulting market, and ALRO, the largest aluminum smelter in Central and Eastern Europe (excluding Russia), announce the launch of the unified corporate information system based on SAP ERP. Industrial operation of the system was launched on September 01, 2007.
ALRO, the Romanian group, currently comprises a primary and processed aluminum production entity (S.C. ALRO S.A.) and an alumina production entity (S.C. ALUM S.A. TULCEA).
In July 2007 VIMETCO (www.vimetco.com), the owner of the ALRO group, placed its global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange in a successful IPO. In this connection the project has from its outset pursued the objective of bringing ALRO companies to the state-of-the-art, competitive level of the quality of corporate governance.
The project, which started on November 01, 2006, was intended to improve management efficiency by unifying functions common to all of the plants, centralizing non-production functions in the head office and using tools provided by the integrated information system to exercise real time control over the company's business processes.
Based on the results of a bidding process, the project was awarded to an international consortium of companies headed by IBS. Romanian systems integrators and leading western consulting companies also took part in the bidding. The most important criteria in selecting the implementation partner were a successful track record of building integrated automation systems in metallurgy, a professional team of consultants and guarantees of meeting the timeframes and the project budget.
ALRO's unified corporate information system including the transactional and analytical systems was built based on SAP ERP, the state-of-the-art enterprise management product by SAP AG. The first phase of the project delivered financial management (including both local and the IFRS accounting), management accounting, investment management, materials management, purchasing management, sales management, production planning and management, and a budgeting and analytical reporting system. A strategic planning system based on SAP Business Intelligence will be fully implemented before the end of 2007.
Depending on first phase results, the second phase, planned for 2008, will develop the functions already implemented and build a plant maintenance system based on SAP PM. Integration between existing manufacturing execution systems (MES) and the SAP ERP system is planned to be provided. The system will be localized for operation in Romania.
Mr. Gherghe Dobra, Managing Director of ALRO said:
"We expect that implementation of the state-of-the-art management information system will enable us to build more efficient links within the group, make our operations more profitable and improve the quality of management. Automation of operations and regulation of procedures have already enabled us to speed up preparation of reports, analyzing and decision making substantially. Before the project we used to receive reports on business operations in the previous month only after the twentieth day of the next month. Now the period closing time has been reduced to 6 days and we are able to respond faster when the situation changes."
Companies profiles
ALRO is a public company with shares traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Producing about 260,000 tons of primary aluminum and about 60,000 tons of processed aluminum a year, ALRO is the largest aluminum smelter in Central and Eastern Europe (excluding Russia).
ALRO's production processes and products have been certified in accordance with international standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 18001 (OHSAS 18001).
For the past 40 years ALRO has been making an important contribution to supporting Romania's economic development and external trade, providing jobs for 4,500 people and supporting more than 20,000 family members and workers in ancillary sectors.
ALRO products are known in 25 countries. www.alro.ro
Vimetco NV is an international industrial and investment group focusing on the aluminum industry, with a corporate investment center in The Netherlands and a management and services center in Switzerland. The Group is present in several countries, including The Netherlands, Switzerland, China, Guinea and Romania. It had a work force as of December 31, 2006 of approximately 10,400 employees.
The majority of the Group's industrial output is sold on international markets, including the London Metals Exchange (LME) as well as the Shanghai Metal Market (SMM).
In July 2007 Vimetco placed its global depositary receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange in a successful IPO. The IPO resulted in an implied market capitalization of the company of approximately $2 billion.
IBS is Russia’s leading player in the IT and consulting market. It is part of IBS Group. For more information about IBS and its corporate management systems practice please visit www.ibs.ru.
IBS is the first Russian company to become Local Alliance Partner (the top partner level) of SAP AG, and the first SAP partner for business analytics solutions. In 2005 IBS was named the best Local Service Partner of SAP AG in Russia and the CIS. IDC, the global market research firm, named IBS team of SAP implementation consultants one of the best in Russia.
For further information on IBS please contact Lada Scherbakova, PR Director, IBS, phone: +7 495 967-80-80, e-mail: lada@IBS.ru
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