Business Challenges

The objective of the project was to implement JDE Worldsoft A7.3 package used by Thermal Ceramics group companies worldwide in MMTCL and Morgan Korea, including Indian and Korean localization respectively. The latter was a more complex and critical task as the standard JD Edwards Worldsoft A7.3 package did not support Korean localization requirements. Additional efforts were required for Korean language translation. The project involved multiple separate JD Edwards A7.3 instances covering business requirements of both countries.

Scope of the implementation for both the companies was similar and included:

• Study current business processes
• Implement finance, distribution and manufacturing modules of JD Edwards A7.3 with suitable modifications, including localization
• Data migration of masters and balances
• Customization in distribution modules to cater to business process needs
• CRP jointly with super users
• Use third party software (CAMS) for excise requirements and reporting for India Implementation
• Training for super users
• Go-live
• Post go-live support.

For the implementation at Korea, the scope also included localizing requirements to print customer invoices by using a third party software and the development of custom reports to cater to MIS requirements for manufacturing, finance and distribution. For the Indian localization, the use of advanced pricing features was critical.

Solution Highlights

Following the SYS-on-Time™ approach, the rollout leverages the offshore-onsite model effectively and brought in significant cost effectiveness at an early stage.

All the modules including the technical customization were implemented in 7 months and 6 months, in India and Korea respectively. SYSTIME used the onsite–offshore model for development of technical (customization and reporting) solution. The technical solution was developed in phases, wherein critical development of customer facing documents were thoroughly tested in CRP stage, while non-critical reports were developed at a later date, during post go-live support.

An additional effort of three months (onsite/offshore) was utilized to provide additional end-user training as users were reluctant to switch over to the new JD Edwards system. This included preparation of more detailed training material and solution documents (translated in Korean) and additional ICRP sessions conducted onsite to train the users.

Business Benefits

• Identical management reporting structure as compared to the rest of the group companies, enabling easy comparison and cross-learning
• Timely responses to all location IT managers and issue resolution
• Client’s IT team learnt RPG training skills, which can help them develop simple batch programs, interactive applications and make simple changes to existing custom programs

The successful rollout was received with a lot of appreciation at the client’s end and SYSTIME became the obvious choice for support projects for its APAC operations (India, Korea, Singapore and Australia).