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Our Bureau

Chennai , Sept. 24

ERP has helped Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals increase its topline to Rs 713 crore from Rs 383 crore in the last three years, according to Mr N.C. Raghuram, Vice-President (IT).

Also, the company's bottomline improved by five times, he said at Connect2004, a four-day IT event organised by the CII.

Participating in a panel discussion on drawing value out of ERP, from a manufacturer's perspective, Mr Raghuram said that Orchid implemented SAP (an ERP application) and saw its inventory turnover (number of months of production) increase to 4.6 from 3.7.

The stores and spare parts reduced to $2.5 million from $3.4 million and debtors (more than six months) reduced to $6.1 million from $12.2 million.

On the operational side, capacity utilisation increased to 95 per cent from 85 per cent, while maintenance downtime fell to two per cent from eight per cent.

The finished goods stock (number of days production) reduced to 17 from 45 and idle time during raw material shortage declined to five per cent from eight per cent.

Response to customers today was one day compared to 10 days earlier, he said.

According to Mr N. Chandrasekaran, General Manager (Information Technology), Ashok Leyland Lt, it is not enough to have an ERP that connects systems within an organisation.

It is also important that an organisation has a good supply chain management (for logistics), CRM, and product life cycle management (for product lifecycle) in place.

More Stories on : Enterprise Resource Planning | Pharmaceuticals

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