Artech's Cem-ERP Designed For Cement Industry
By Sohini Bagchi
Bangalore, Sep 21, 2005

Today ERP application is no longer seen as an additional IT investment but a must-have in any organization. With enterprises witnessing an upturn of this software across verticals, enterprise application vendors expect the growth to augment with more solutions and products in the market. The latest addition to this list is Artech, Infosystems Pvt Ltd., which is all set to come up with its ERP solution- Cem-ERP, specially crafted for the cement industry in India.

In an exclusive with CXOtoday, Rajeev Malik, chief technology officer, Artech Infosystems, explained, "This ERP is designed to help cement manufacturers in India automate their main business areas, such as production planning, material management, purchase, sales, financial accounts and payroll, etc."

Cem-ERP provides Windows-based Interface using Visual Basic and .NET. It uses Oracle 10g as the back-end database.

"The architecture of the product enables high levels of scalability and easy customization as per the client needs. It would also consist of supply chain management shortly. There are separate modules available for other activities like fixed deposits, internal transport and material loans," he informed.

According to Malik, "Cem-ERP is an integrated package that is designed as per the requirements of Indian cement industry. The whole idea is to maintain standardization and integrate the different operation.

Illustrating his view with an example he said, With the implementation of this ERP solution in a cement company, the sales staff can book orders that are reflected online to users in the production planning departments. Thereafter, users in the purchase and material management departments can view the items that are planned by the planning department, for e.g. stocks, which are not available and need to be purchased, thus making the process more transparent.

All these transactions are connected online with the financial accounting modules, which results in automatic creation of vouchers. There are various reports available for daily use and for management reporting.

Asked him what makes Cem-ERP different from other players and pat came the reply, "We have designed this product in such a way as to cater meticulously to the Indian cement market. We have carried an extensive survey to figure out the need of the cement manufacturers in the country, and tried including as many pro-s as per the need of the industry, in designing the product."

On the specific benefits of using Artech's ERP over big names, Malik commented, "One unique feature of Cem-ERP is that it is easily customizable to the client's requirement as per the existing processes and practices of the client whereas other big players in the market would need the client to change their existing processes to be compatible to the software."

Malik feels that many times globally recognized ERPs fail to comply with the Indian standard of rules and regulations and make the overall operation confusing Further, the cost of implementation is less than other ERP products available in the market at present and would depend on the size of the company and its requirements.

On the challenges faced by CIO/CTOs in implementing ERP solution, Malik tipped off, "Today, CIOs have to justify the RoI for every enterprise application they purchase, including an ERP application. In such a scenario, he should chalk out a clear strategy in terms of efficiency and budget.

Giving further advice he continued, Selection of the implementation team for ERP must be done with extreme care. Since implementation takes anywhere between 6 to 12 months, depending on the scope of implementation, there must be a dedicated team of IT specialists adhering to the time schedules of each milestone fixed,

"Correct evaluation of ERP products and implementation partners are equally important as lack of training among employees is another area, which slows down the implementation process, he added.

In terms of market potential for ERP solutions Malik replied, "The market for ERP is escalating because even today there are a large number of Indian companies who continue to have legacy systems. There are huge untapped opportunities for ERP players in several emerging verticals and cement industry is one of the key sectors in the country, which is undergoing a lot of technological transformation.