1. Management
A Cement
manufacturer Doubles Its
turnover, With It
Over the last five decades, Saurastra Cement Limited has used technology as the
springboard to vault to the forefront of the Indian cement industry.
Vandana Sharma
BenefIT Bureau
F
ounded in 1956, Saurashtra ensure that it continues to live up energy efficient manufacturing
Cement Limited (SCL), the to its vision “…to be the most cost plants—equipped with the latest
flagship company of the effective cement manufacturer on internationally-sourced machinery,
Mehta Group, is a good example the west coast of India,” even in to ensure world standard processes
of how traditional Indian values these times of global competition. are implemented at every stage.
combined with modern technology- SCL carries forward the spirit Modernisation has resulted in
driven practices can make a and passion of the late Shri Nanji significant improvements in the
company double capacity and Bhai Mehta—the group’s charismatic operations at the plant, affirms A
achieve operational cohesiveness on and techno-savvy founder, whose S Kailasan, senior V P, Saurashtra
par with global standards. exemplary interest in technology led Cements. The plant is completely
The company, led by its him to establish the first of its kind, automated and the installed
chairman, Mahendra Mehta and Jawaharlal Nehru planetarium in control systems have led to
executive vice chairman, Jay Mehta, Western India. capacity enhancement, reduction
has always adopted the latest tools in power and fuel consumption
of the trade. These, along with a Tryst with technology and an improvement in quality
rich blend of technology-enablers SCL has state-of-the-art and and emission levels, he adds. The
10 / February 2010 / BenefIT

2. Management
company adheres to strict quality an appropriate solution required
control practices and is an ISO a lot of research. SCL evaluated Fact file
9001:2000 company. ERP solutions offered by vendors SCL’s brand Hathi Cement generates a
The SCL management always like SAP, Ramco, Oracle and many turnover of Rs 400 crores. The company
has two cement manufacturing facilities
adopts the latest technology. “The others. The management consulted in Gujarat: at Ranvav, Porbandar and at
workforce has access to the latest ERP experts; read a lot of studies Siddhigram. It has a marketing office in
laptops and smartphones. Apart from published by agencies like Price Ahmedabad and a corporate office in
Mumbai. The company has eight sales
adding to their productivity, this helps Waterhouse Coopers to compare offices spread across Gujarat, and one
to keep the workforce motivated different vendors and their offerings in Mumbai.
as they feel a sense of pride while to learn about the best practices The company is recognised as
a leading export house and has also
working on the latest gadgets and of implementing an ERP system. received the Certificate of Exports
technologies,” shares Kailasan. Finally SCL opted for Ramco’s awarded by CAPEXIL, a commendable
three times.
SCL operates like an IT company on-premise ERP solution. The key
and has an innovative IT team, reason behind this decision was
comprising 18 members. The Ramco’s prior implementation opines: “Although the requirements
company spends Rs 2-3 crore every of every manufacturing industry
year on IT and uses a range of is unique, cement manufacturing
technology tools to coordinate and companies in particular are quite
communicate between branches, and different. He shares more details
effectively automate its core functions. on the complex requirements of a
cement manufacturing company:
It gets better “Cement manufacturing is a complex
The company’s obsession for mix of processes. Even the process
technology is such that it keeps of recording the production output
A S Kailasan, senior V P,
exploring options to both add to Saurashtra Cements and raw material consumption is
its existing set of tools and replace different. The finished goods move
obsolete devices with better models. “IT adoption has through many destinations before
Till the late 90s, the company used minimised the reaching the customer so tracking the
FoxPro-based software applications occurrence of human goods and the costs incurred during
for its management and transactional
processes. But since each application
errors.” transit are unique to the cement
industry. The loss in transit due to
was operating in isolation, exchanging the physical form of cement is also
data between these applications and experience in the cement industry. unique to this industry.”
transferring it from one source to the In fact, at the very time of SCL’s Kailasan feels that Ramco’s prior
other became a problem. evaluation, Ramco Systems was experience helped immensely. He
Thus, the management began engaged in implementing its ERP explains: “Ramco had the model
exploring the possibility of an solution in Madras Cements, ready after its Madras Cements
integrated solution that could link a Chennai-based cement deployment. Most of the modules
the disjointed silos of data and bring manufacturing company. matched our requirements. In fact,
all its processes onto one platform. we could take advantage of the best
In 1999, when the complexity and Ramco’s industry experience practices and experience gained by
volume of operations increased, proved beneficial! Ramco from that implementation,”
SCL thought of opting for a But are the requirements of cement says Kailasan.
centrally integrated ERP solution. manufacturers so unique? And is it But despite this, a detailed
Hence began the search for a so critical to look for vendors with analysis of requirements was
solution that could cater to the an exposure to your industry or undertaken. This helped in clearly
niche requirements of a cement vertical? Suresh Shakkarwar, regional defining user-level requirements,
manufacturing firm. manager—Implementation & Support says Shakkarwar. He further recalls: “A
Evaluating and zeroing in on (Western Region), Ramco Systems, series of discussions between the key
BenefIT / February 2010 / 11

3. Management
Suresh Shakkarwar, regional
manager—Implementation
& Support (Western Region),
Ramco Systems
“The product training
imparted to the key users
in the company gave
them a clear idea about
the ERP application.” SCL employees working on the computers
users from Saurashtra and the Ramco says: “IT adoption has minimised which enables the mobile workforce
functional consultants provided a the occurrence of human errors. to access and feed in information to
deep insight into the business. The Coordination between the branches the ERP system.
product training imparted to the key and among the workforce is better; New processes: Many new
users gave them a clear idea about there is no unnecessary information workflows have been added, like
the application. The process changes flowing in the company; there is no appraisal approvals and purchase
suggested by Ramco were accepted by duplication in the processes across the approvals, as per the evolving needs
Saurashtra after evaluating them from board; there is no wrong reporting to of the company.
all angles.” The implementation took the top management. All information Integration with the attendance
a year to complete. is taken from the ERP system and can system: Feeds from the biometric
Having an India-based vendor be authenticated.” attendance tool are sent to the HR
also helped. As Kailasan says, module of the ERP system.
“The biggest advantage of Ramco’s Strengthening the ERP system Web-enabling the ERP: Plans to
solution was evident when the It’s been ten years since SCL integrate the ERP system with the SCL
government raised the excise duty implemented the ERP platform. The website, to enable online purchase,
on cement a few years ago. All other entire workflow and processes have are in the offing. Kailasan shares
ERP vendors, being based overseas, been automated—like HR, purchase, more details: “The website will allow
took almost one or two months to finance, marketing, order processing, vendors to register and offer their raw
update the ERP implementations etc. But SCL didn’t stop at that. Over material quotes online. In turn, SCL
at their respective clients’ sites. As the years, the in-house IT team built also plans to post its requirements
a consequence, most India cement many enhancements on top of the online and solicit proposals.”
companies ended up paying excise ERP solution to get the most out of it.
duty at higher rates for those two Intelligence added: A business Continual training
months. But since Ramco did the intelligence tool has been added The SCL management believes that
upgrade on the same day, SCL could to empower decision makers training is critical to the successful
save significant amounts of money.” to access real-time information adoption of any technology. Thus,
through dashboards. This is helping the emphasis has always been to
The automation effect key management members take regularly arrange to train new and
Talking about the difference that this informed decisions. old employees as per their usage
comprehensive ERP solution has Anytime, anywhere access to requirements. The in-house IT team
made to the company’s productivity at ERP: The ERP system has been undertakes a comprehensive IT
all levels in the organisation, Kailasan integrated with an SMS gateway, training programme once a year.
12 / February 2010 / BenefIT

4. Management
Apart from this, the company also
An innovative approach to IT conducts regular human resource
Here’s a list of a few interesting IT tools being used at SCL:
• Video conferencing tools are in place to coordinate with different branches/ development programmes to nurture
factories. Senior officials across locations use these to connect with each other the managerial, technical and
every day, holding long meetings to thrash out important or urgent issues. marketing skills of its employees. SCL
• All offices are connected through a VPN (virtual private network), whereby
employees can share information over their computers, instantly, reports has over 650 employees.
Kailasan. “This has enabled the IT team to take control of the computers and do
the troubleshooting or extend IT support, remotely,” he adds.
• SCL has an Avaya EPBX (electronic private branch exchange) communication
Marching ahead, with IT
system that enables all employees, across locations, to call each other by dialling Going forward, SCL wants to
an internal number. “There is no need to dial the STD code to talk to employees be among the top five cement
across branches. This saves a lot of money,” says Kailasan.
companies in the country. In the next
• The senior officials have smartphones like the Blackberry and iPhone, and use
instant messaging tools for quick real time communication, thereby saving money five years, the company has plans to
that would otherwise go in making calls. expand and diversify significantly,
• Google’s online applications are used to share documents between teams
by acquiring cement companies,
working on common projects.
• SCL has programmable logic controller software to control and monitor its enhancing its current IT and
factories, online. Factors like production levels, temperature, etc, can be manufacturing infrastructure and
monitored and controlled online.
• The company uses a biometric attendance system to record the entry of increasing its production capacity.
employees into the premises. Also, at strategic locations like locker rooms and The company plans to do all this with
server rooms, entry is controlled by biometric devices. its tremendous faith in its employees
• There is a document management system that stores files electronically; all data
can be retrieved very fast and accessed instantly. and its technological prowess.
• To support the ERP system, SCL invested in servers, desktops, switches and SCL’s track record should
VPN (virtual private network) connectivity. convince those who doubt IT’s ‘real’
• For campus security, CCTV (closed circuit TV) cameras and Web cams have
been installed. Factory sites can be viewed on a screen, remotely. relevance to their line of trade, to use
IT to run a better organisation.
Tidbits
You can
now access
Store you data online Facebook and
Online data storage and back-up helps you Twitter via
protect your business critical data from PC Yahoo! Mail
crashes. Binfire.com is one such new service that If you use Yahoo!
lets you store data online. Besides, it provides Mail, you will now
other collaboration tools for individual and small be able to enjoy
business users such as multiple file sharing, social networking
multiple file uploading, online chat, and live sites over e-mail.
support. It provides you with hotlinks to files and Yahoo! has plans to integrate with Facebook and Twitter
folders that you by 2010-end. The company wants to enable users to share
can share with meaningful content within their circles on the social media
your colleagues websites. You will be able to connect with Facebook friends
or friends. on Yahoo!, view a feed of their friends’ related activity
For further on Yahoo!, and share content like photos from Flickr or
information, visit comments on news stories, with all of their friends on
www.binfire.com. Facebook, the company says.
BenefIT / February 2010 / 13