SEW Oracle ebs-case-study

Copyright © 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published January 2011
Oracle Customer Case Study
SEW Infrastructure Manages US$150 Million of
Assets and Plans US$3 Billion Worth of Projects
SEW Infrastructure Ltd
Hyderabad, India
www.sewinfrastructure.com
Industry:
Engineering & Construction
Annual Revenue:
US$500 million
Employees:
More than 6,500
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle E-Business Suite
Release 12
Oracle Financials
Oracle Procurement
Oracle iProcurement
Oracle Inventory Management
Oracle Human Resources
Oracle Payroll
Oracle Self-Service Human
Resources
Oracle Enterprise Asset
Management
Oracle Process Manufacturing
Oracle Projects
Oracle Universal Content
Management
Oracle WebCenter Suite
“Oracle E-Business Suite has significantly improved the way we
manage our construction projects across India. The integrated
system allows us to forecast and allocate the right resources to
projects, track day-to-day execution, monitor asset performance,
and it ensures end-to-end process visibility nationwide.”
– Sidhartha Meka, Chief Information Officer, SEW
Infrastructure Ltd
Established in 1959, SEW Infrastructure Ltd is a leading and
highly respected Indian infrastructure construction company that
builds dams, barrages, canals, tunnels, pipelines, hydro and
thermal power stations, metropolitan railways, as well as
highways and buildings. Several of these projects are run in the
build, operate, and transfer (BOT) and build, own, operate, and
transfer BOOT (BOOT) financial models. The company employs
over 6,500 full-time staff at project sites and regional offices in
Hyderabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, and Vijayawada. It also has
offices in Singapore and Indonesia. SEW owns and operates a
coalmine and is building a port in Indonesia, to support its thermal
power plants on the Indian east coast.
In late 2007, SEW recognized the need to introduce an integrated
enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to replace its legacy
financial, materials management, and other systems, which
required significant manual intervention to operate and reconcile
information from all functions in the company.
“SEW’s projects are spread across India at many remote sites,
which made it difficult to keep track of our day-to-day
operations,” said Sidhartha Meka, chief information officer, SEW
Infrastructure Ltd. “It often took a while to get basic information
from each work site around the progress of projects, material
consumption, pending work, and costs. We needed to find an
integrated system to better manage the business and our
subcontractor relationships.”

Key Benefits:
Provided an integrated system
that reduced the time required
to audit the company’s accounts
and process payments
Allowed accountants to keep up
with tax laws that vary across
several states in India
Helped secure volume
discounts from suppliers to the
tune of 3% to 4% by centralizing
procurement
Helped manage US$150 million
worth of assets, including plant,
machinery, and construction
equipment
Maintained an up-to-date asset
book
Automated preventive
maintenance alerts for all
equipment
Established a common payroll
and performance evaluation
model based on individual
competencies and appraisals
Improved the ability to allocate
the right employee to the right
role by recording all staff skill
levels in a central database
Enabled staff to view their pay
slips and tax declarations and
apply for leave online
Helped managers plan material
requirements, machine hours,
and manpower requirements by
giving them the tools to forecast
the revenue according to the
execution schedule
Made it easier to share
information internally by
providing a central repository to
store documents electronically
In mid-2009, SEW deployed Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
to automate financial reporting, streamline supply chain
management, and track real-time project execution. The company
deployed Oracle Financials, Oracle Procurement, Oracle
iProcurement, Oracle Inventory Management, Oracle Human
Resources, Oracle Payroll, Oracle Self-Service Human Resources,
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, Oracle Process
Manufacturing, and Oracle Projects. Additionally, the intranet
was enabled using Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Universal
Content Management.
“Oracle E-Business Suite has significantly improved the way we
manage our construction projects across India,” said Meka. “The
integrated system allows us to forecast and allocate the right
resources to projects, track day-to-day execution, monitor asset
performance, and it ensures end-to-end process visibility
nationwide.”
Saas on Private Cloud
SEW’s ERP implementation was set up as a private cloud from
the beginning, which enables great flexibility in the deployment,
monitoring, and scalability of business processes. The
implementation is deployed on the software as a service (SaaS)
model on the cloud, providing access to vendors and
subcontractors. Subcontractors can adopt cloud computing as it
eliminates the need for capital investments in hardware and
facilities and leverages the complete capability and benefits of
enterprise resource planning.
Integrated System Automates Financial Processing
Oracle Financials has provided SEW with an integrated system
that reduces the time it takes to audit the company’s accounts and
process payments to material and equipment suppliers and
subcontractors.
Head office financial staff can analyze any piece of financial data
from project sites across India in time. It previously took
considerable time to transport CDs and USB sticks with the
relevant financial data from each project site to the head office
and reconcile the accounts.
The system allows accountants to keep up with current tax laws.
This is particularly useful in India as every state has its own set of
tax laws.

“Timely availability of financial data from nationwide projects
gives us the capability to consolidate the balance sheet and
forecast performance,” said Meka. “Earlier, we had to wait weeks
for data CDs to arrive from remote locations, and it took
tremendous effort to consolidate our accounts, work out taxes, and
comply with statutory reporting commitments.”
Materials Costs Reduced, Data Entry Minimized
SEW has more than 100 construction projects worth an estimated
US$3 billion in progress across India. The company now uses
Oracle Procurement to manage purchasing steel, cement, diesel,
and other bulk materials used during construction. The system is
also being used to purchase uniforms, safety equipment, goggles,
and helmets for staff. Oracle Procurement enables a centralized
purchasing function based on project execution plans to ensure
timely availability of the right materials.
“Because we are purchasing centrally and not at a local level, we
can get volume discounts from our suppliers,” said Meka. “We
expect our materials costs to reduce by 3% to 4%.”
Oracle Inventory Management has enabled the company to
implement bar coding each item used during construction projects
to eliminate data entry errors.
“We can track inventory at all our stores nationwide and
potentially make better purchasing decisions,” said Meka. “The
system also a reduced need to maintain high-value spares in all
locations due to the cross-project visibility of items available,
allowing us to potentially source what we need.”
Measuring the Efficiency of Assets
SEW uses Oracle Enterprise Asset Management to manage
US$150 million worth of assets, including plant and machinery
and construction equipment such as trucks, dozers, graders,
excavators, and cranes. The system is also used to calculate
depreciation on assets and maintain an up-to-date asset book.
The routine preventive maintenance alerts are automated when the
equipment needs to be serviced to avoid possible failure. The
system also allows day-to-day tracking of fuel consumption on
owned and hired equipment.
“For example, we can set an alert that will notify us when a truck
is using fuel above thresholds, so our maintenance staff can
address the issue,” said Meka. “On a US$100 million project, we

may spend US$20 to US$30 million on diesel alone, so fuel
management is important for us, and being able to determine the
efficiency of an asset in real-time is most helpful.”
Improved Staff Tracking
Oracle Human Resources and Oracle Payroll have helped SEW
centralize its human resources department. The integrated Oracle
Human Resources and Oracle Payroll modules enable SEW to
determine exactly how many people are working for the company
on all remote sites at any given time, how much tax and other
statutory obligations are to be paid, and what benefits need to be
administered to staff.
“Previously it was hard for us to determine how many people,
particularly contract employees, were working on various projects
across the country, since HR management was localized at the
project site,” said Meka. “Now we can administer a common
payroll and performance evaluation model based on individual
competencies and periodic appraisals.
“Managers also have a system where they can record each staff
member’s level of skills, which improves their ability to allocate
the right staff to the right roles. For instance, a manager may use
the system to find an expert with specialized skill requirements
for quality control, quality assurance, and quantity survey roles.”
Oracle Human Resources is also integrated with an employee
badge scanning system that records when a staff member arrives
in the office. The system automates the reporting of working
hours for staff and contract workers for supervisors. Employees
also use Oracle Self-Service Human Resources to view their pay
slips, tax declarations, and absence management online.
Ensuring Revenue Targets Are Met
Oracle Projects enables SEW to forecast and meet revenue
projections according to the project execution schedule. This
helps managers plan material requirements, machine hours, and
the manpower requirements that need to be mobilized and
deployed to ensure revenue targets are met.
“The overall plan and execution of each project is tied into the
initial revenue projections that top management is committed to,”
said Meka. “We can do this by keeping track of the cost of each
piece of work. For example, on a typical road construction
project, we have about 4,000 activities each month that are billed

to the client. We are now able to determine our profitability at the
activity level. The activities could be planned at a micro-level,
activities that could be as simple as excavating a small pit.
“This data is used to build our information warehouse, which can
be leveraged to improve our bid accuracy for future projects.”
SEW also uses Oracle Process Manufacturing to keep track of raw
materials, production items, production costs, and plant
operations.
“For example, we can track the cost of raw materials consumed to
construct a kilometer of road based on the quantity of inventory
consumed and the production delivered at the plant,” said Meka.
“We previously used to record this information manually on
paper, which was quite time-consuming for reconciliations.”
Instant Access to Important Documentation
SEW uses Oracle Universal Content Management to store various
types of documentation, including payment vouchers, invoices,
warranty documents, equipment manuals, and other documents
that are required for tax and statutory purposes.
“We have a lot of information on paper, which is now in
electronic form as well,” said Meka. “For instance, all our
insurance policies are now scanned and maintained digitally in
Oracle Universal Content Management. It is now easier to prepare
insurance claims as we can rapidly retrieve supporting documents
such as policy proofs, invoices, and incident images from the
Oracle Universal Content Management system.
“In addition, we use the system to store any documentation
required for a bid. The business development team involved in the
bidding process can easily share documents in a secure manner.
Previously, this information used to be floating around the
company via e-mails and on USB sticks, which sometimes meant
important documents were difficult to locate and secure.”
Why Oracle?
SEW evaluated offers from 26 vendors to provide an integrated
ERP system before narrowing the field down to Oracle,
Microsoft, and SAP. Oracle was selected due to its product
strength in financial management and the support of open
standards.
“We needed an application that suited our complex business,”

said Meka. “Some projects are owned by us, some are joint
ventures, and they are completed in various phases that last
several years.
“Oracle E-Business Suite proved to be the best solution to
manage our business processes. Because of the compliance with
open standards, we are able to easily customize the applications
based on the needs of our business.
“One of the reasons why we chose Oracle over SAP was because
it was more cost-effective to customize on the Oracle platform,”
said Meka. “SAP requires people with ABAP skills, which are
quite expensive. Oracle requires people with SQL and some Java
skills to develop screens using Oracle Application Development
Framework and Oracle JDeveloper.”
Implementation Process
The project was completed in two phases. During phase 1, which
began in December 2008 and lasted for six months, SEW
deployed Oracle Financials, Oracle Procurement, Oracle
iProcurement, Oracle Inventory Management, Oracle Human
Resources, Oracle Payroll, Oracle Self-Service Human Resources,
and Oracle Universal Content Management.
During stage two, which also lasted another six months, the
company deployed Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, Oracle
Process Manufacturing, Oracle Projects, and Oracle WebCenter
Suite.
Oracle Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) assisted SEW with
the implementation of all modules in the two phases.
PwC mapped SEW’s business processes to the core functionality
of Oracle E-Business Suite modules. The systems integrator
completed process mapping and other pre-go-live activities, such
as data migration, testing, and end-user training before the system
went live in mid-2009.
Established in 1959, SEW Infrastructure Ltd is a leading and highly respected
Indian infrastructure construction company that builds dams, barrages, canals,
tunnels, pipelines, hydro and thermal power stations, metropolitan railways, as
well as highways and buildings.

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