Murray and Roberts Steel (MRS) manufactures and supplies steel reinforcing solutions to companies in the construction industry both within sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
Recently, the company decided to implement a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, and chose EOH Consulting as its implementation partner. With the project recently completed, Murray and Roberts Steel is already seeing significant results.
Paul Hunter, manager: World Class Finance, EOH Consulting, explains that MRS was facing significant business challenges when it initially approached EOH Consulting.
"The company wanted to implement a completely new ERP system. At the same time, management wanted to streamline and standardise all of its finance, stock and manufacturing processes across the various group companies."
He adds that the new business processes to be put in place, as well as the ERP system also needed to interface with its current operating system, Arma +.
The team from EOH Consulting began by documenting all of the "as is" or current business processes across the group companies so as to identify inefficiencies and initial opportunities for improvement. "We then began to design all of the future or 'to be' business processes, addressing the requirements for efficiency gains and streamlining. This was done so as to utilise all of the available functionality in the two MRS technology systems - that of the new ERP system, as well as the Arma + stock and manufacturing one," says Hunter. A complete set of business process blueprints were thus developed for all of the MRS group companies. These were used during the ERP system's implementation.
As a result of the implementation, all business processes were re-modelled and standardised across Murray and Roberts Steel's entire business. EOH Consulting was also able to identify the required controls and reports thanks to the new business process flow definitions. System user controls and requirements were additionally defined. Hunter explains that by following the blueprints developed during consultation, the EOH team was able to reduce the time and cost of implementation. "We were also able to improve the quality thereof in terms of proper alignment with the company's business requirements."
Marcus Du Plessis, Murray and Roberts Steel programme manager, says EOH Consulting made a huge difference to the process. "Without EOH Consulting we would probably still be in the 'as is' phase. They really managed to get to the core of our business in a very short space of time, enabling us to move forward much faster in our implementation."
With the benefits of the implementation already being felt, Murray and Roberts Steel looks set to enjoy improved business and business processes well into the future. EOH Consulting has yet again proved the value of finding a real implementation partner - one who builds on existing systems and processes to realise the vision of the project.
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