Operations data was not flowing smoothly through the organization, representing a drag on business productivity and performance and failing to support the company's business strategy of tight integration throughout multiple business units. A strong culture of continuous improvement further prompted Braskem management to find and implement integrated solutions to operate plant assets more cost-effectively and efficiently.
One of the company's first steps towards identifying process improvements was the enterprise-wide adoption of SAP, streamlining the company's data flows and providing management with direct access to real-time operating information.
Short sighted companies, especially in today's difficult economic times, can sometimes fall into the trap of a single site deployment and miss all the advantages of optimizing their PM activities across the organization.
Below are 5 key steps to follow when designing your SAP enterprise roll-out strategy.
1. Seek management buy-in at the highest level. Management must commit to and communicate the strategic decision of standardizing on a consistent set of tools for analyzing data for process improvements.
2. Set a reasonable timetable. Depending on the size of your operations, the timetable can range dramatically, but it is imperative to your success to set realistic expectations with management and the organization.
3. Devote adequate manpower and budget resources for necessary implementation and training.
4. Form a group of champions who can get the job done. Getting the job done means convincing others of the "benefits" of standardization for the individual, as well as for the company.
5. Develop and utilize a "standard" data structure to serve as a backbone across all the sites to enable analysis sharing.
By choosing an enterprise deployment of SAP, Braskem is more effectively able to leverage their equipment asset data to introduce more consistent operating practices across their geographically dispersed units. As a result, Braskem is achieving higher and higher performance, edging closer and closer to a top-10 ranking on the petrochemical global stage.
Article provided by Meridium.
*This article is an excerpt from "Braskem Leverages Meridium and SAP Solutions in Efforts to Capture Top-10 Petrochem Ranking" published in the October 2008 issue of APM Advisor. (http://www.apmadvisor.com/archivearticle.asp?id=97)
