Until 2009, Nesma & Partners (N&P) used BaanIV as its ERP system to run the business for finance, procurement, and projects, and used Baan LN for HR, payroll, and administration; this all caused an increase in IT’s operational and Maintenance costs. N&P intended to migrate from BaanIV, which was 12 years old at the time, to INFOR ERP LN quickly and efficiently.
N&P needed a trusted and reliable partner with expertise in INFOR ERP LN to execute these needs with quality, integrity, and speed.
The data migration was the most challenging project for the project team. The mixture of data, stored for 10 years in Baan IV, demanding requirements, and a lot of junk data required a highly detailed & customized data migration.
Besides the huge difference in data structure from BaanIV to ERP LN, more that 80,000 assets, including a 10-year cost and maintenance history, had to be included within the migration project.
Another business requirement: enhancement of the TP-Project package. Because of better costs and progress traceability in our large construction projects, projects like petrochemical plants, civil airports, and power plant projects add up to hundred million dollar projects. This business required a very detailed tracking of costs and progress; we decided to switch from element-based to activity-based tracking.
The entire project was scheduled to be completed within six months. Since a period for setting up training documentation and a pre-study for checking feasibility were involved, the bulk of data migration and implementation only took four months. Together with the fact that weekends in Saudi-Arabia are on Thursday and Friday, the project schedule was very demanding. The main project started in October 2008 and was handed over in January 2009. An international team of 12 key users were able to dedicate 100% of their time to the project, and a project room was set up at the Al Khobar headquarters. The first weeks were fully dedicated to transferring as much knowledge as possible from the consultants to the key users. Since IT companies‘ support is rather poor in the Middle East, the key users are crucial to the project and function as additional support for the end users after going live. Knowledge transfer early on with a prepared easybaan® company and our own data was essential for success.
In six weeks of training, the key users were allowed to handle the Infor 10 ERP Enterprise – System without the consultants‘ help. The goal: be able to simulate and improve the existing business processes with the least possible amount of external help.
A close connection with the functional departments verified that all requirements could be implemented in a short amount of time. Meetings with top management took place every 2 weeks to address existing issues and to report the project progress. Tasks for the key users were assigned for the period, as the consultants were not on-site.
During the project, the easybaan®-related master company was transformed step by step to a Nesma-specific master company. To prove the migration and implementation project’s effectiveness, 3 case simulations with entire business processes were done. The processes were tested by copying the customized easybaan® company to a shadow company and starting business processes that covered all areas of the company. It was verified from Day 1 until the project end that there was always a master company in running order, enormously reducing project risks.
Within the implementation process, several visits at construction areas were held to let the consultants see the expected improvements. This allowed the consultants to get the big picture of Migration Labs’ requirements. Several improvements, like optimization in material handling, were triggered independently from the IT department. In a short period, the key users showed their expertise and ideas on how to use ERP LN in the future. Issues were tracked, and solutions were documented. Other than this, in order to focus on working with the system, no process documentation was created.
During the implementation, there were almost 100 issues to work on, and all were resolved before going live. After going live, no major issues were reported by the users.
From an implementation point of view, all but a few goals were met. Only in the Service area were the preventive maintenance/inspections not implemented, since users required more time to understand the new functionalities in LN Service.
In the end, it took 1,245 single data migration steps to deliver the required solution to Nesma and Partners.
Processes were always shown online within the system, and it was confirmed that the key users are always able to manage the new IT Systems. After three dry runs, top management, convinced that the implementation and data migration were in running order, decided the new IT was ready to go live. The stay was extended for two weeks for 1 consultant apart from the original plan. After going live, no further attendance from the mentioned consultants was needed to support going live. Once the ERP LN is up and running reliably, all maintenance was handled by our own IT staff.
According to Mr. Antonio Carlos Warde, manager in charge of HR and IT, “It was the easybaan® migration method that convinced Nesma and Partners to collaborate with Migration Labs.”
Mr Warde: We wanted to have data migration and implementation to be delivered from one company. The easybaan® methodology provided us with the earliest possible access to full functionality since it starts with a preconfigured LN system that covers distribution, manufacturing, finance, and controlling. Also, training acquainted us with the expanded functionalities of ERP LN, while a quick workshop migration took place. This workshop migration provided us our BaanIV data in the Infor 10 ERP Enterprise – preconfigured easybaan® company. So we became familiar with the expanded possibilities by using our own data coming from BaanIV. In addition, what sold us was the open and flexible data migration technology that came with the easybaan® method. It gave us the chance to include some very fundamental data changes within the data migration process.
Another reason for us to use easybaan® methodology was that ReportTuner is part of the easybaan® bundle. We had many commercial reports to be rebuilt in Infor 10 ERP Enterprise. In the Middle East and Arabic-speaking nations, special requirements are important. Besides the demanding requirements of the sales and purchase departments with grids and 8 digits in front of the decimal sign, we had to print English and Arabic both on all reports. The easybaan® ReportTuner was able to cover these requirements.“
Nesma & Partners Contracting Co. Ltd. is the engineering and construction division of Nesma Holding Co. Ltd., and has been contributing to Saudi Arabia’s industrial and infrastructure sector since 1981 with reliable, multi-dimensional construction services.
Today Nesma & Partners is a recognized leader in the fields of oil and gas, petrochemicals, power, and water. N & P is responsible for major construction work in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia and the wider Gulf region, and has established itself as the contractor of choice for a range of esteemed clients. With a reputation for efficient, impeccable service, the company continues to expand its construction expertise, incorporating the latest and most advanced industry technology. Combining technical expertise and rich human capital with deep knowledge and experience of local markets, Nesma & Partners has ample resources with which to cater for every need in constructing, operating, and maintaining technically demanding projects.
