"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." - Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel laureate, 1913 (Literature)
It gives us great pleasure to announce that the SAAD SCM implementation project went live on 29th May 2011. On this occasion we would like to congratulate the whole SCM Team of SAAD. We’re also feeling very happy to present a small case study about the team’s experience of making this project go live.
1. Introduction of the Client
SAAD is a one of the biggest privately-owned diversified business group. Anchored in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, SAAD operates across the Gulf and has investments around the world. SAAD has more than 18000 employees based in Saudi Arabia.
2. Overview of the Project
As mentioned above, SAAD is a diversified business group and this particular project was for SAAD TRADING & CONSTRUCTION COMPANY which is one of the biggest entities of this group. The SAAD Supply Chain Implementation Project is actually divided into different phases on the basis of different entities; this was the 1st phase of the project.
SAAD trading & Construction Company has already got Oracle Finance (GL, FA, Payables) & Oracle HRMS modules implemented by our top most senior team, with great success.
In phase 1 (for the Supply Chain Implementation Project) we have implemented for SAAD trading & Constructions Company. SAAD Trading Company has more than 37 big warehouses, 11 manufacturing workshops, 9 maintenance workshops & 7 site stores; in all having a worth of more than half a billion Riyals (value of stock of items). So from these statistics, one can imagine what the total size of the project would be. For this project, we have implemented Oracle Inventory, Purchasing and Order Management (ISO), and have targeted more than 100 users for training.
3. Challenges Handled
Every project has challenges of its own. This project was not different in that prospect. The first and biggest challenge for us was to orient ourselves, as in for this project the team had to work along with Client’s team and handled individually.
SAAD had already bought Oracle licenses for SCM modules 2 years ago and they did try to implement it on their own, but unfortunately could not do it successfully. So it was a very big challenge when we went there. As the dead line was nearing, the team was under tremendous pressure from client’s end, as they had already wasted a lot of time & money; so they wanted to make the project to go live as quickly as possible without wasting any further time.
Another challenge for the team was that they had to work with the SAAD team. Although they are very good and supportive people, their local Arabic language was proving to be very challenging. Among the technical challenges the team faced, was to develop SLA logic along with the SAAD technical team. This was very tedious because SAAD has a very complicated way of accounting; therefore their requirements for SLA were equally complicated.
The list of challenges actually seems endless but it’s quite normal in every project. And probably because it was our first implementation on oracle R12 alone, the team might have felt the problems to be more than usual. In every project, you have a few hick-ups along your way, but overall, they overcame all the challenges very well and handled them in a very calm & cool manner.
1. Introduction of the Client
In 2002, the Government of Oman decided to move forward with plans to develop a third gas liquefaction train and thus ‘Qalhat LNG’ was born and was incorporated in 2003. While dealing with the other LNG players in the international markets, Qalhat LNG will spread its wings and be a good ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman in the global arena.
QLNG has successful implemented Oracle Financials in year 2006 & HR & payroll in 2009 on Version 11i.
2. Overview of the Project
In order to continue their endeavour to be benchmark organization in all aspect QLNG decided to include one more critical Business function within the umbrella of Oracle.
QLNG planned to implement Oracle Purchasing module with “No Customization” policy. QLNG would like to use the standard features included in Oracle purchasing package, which shall be mapped as per current QLNG Contract & Procurement workflow.
Primary Objective of the Project was as below
3. Challenges Handled
Every project has challenges of its own. This project was no different in that prospect. In the process of implementation we found that to achieve our project objective we need to incorporate few custom object developments.
One of the challenges is managing Technical development work from offshore team (onsite offshore model).
Added workload should not affect the Project time lines, Budget & Delivery standard.
The list of challenges actually seems endless but it’s quite normal in every project. Butthe way Project Team from both the side( QLNG & implementer) has worked to achieve the common objective is make this as an Unique Project Experience.
