Helping a Building Material Trading and Construction Company in Modernizing Material Requirement Planning.
About the customer
The client is a reputed Building Material Trading & Construction Company in the Middle East region with its headquarters in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. The client supplies high-quality building materials and solutions comprising Hardware, Plumbing products, Sanitary fittings, Safety products, Electrical products, Chemical products, and other industrial tools and materials in and around Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. The client operates in 6 GCC countries and has a back office in India.
Business challenges
The company was using a legacy ERP system with limited capabilities. Thus they developed a solution outside the ERP in Microsoft Excel for inventory planning and order tracking. The company often faces challenges because the legacy system could not accommodate some business processes or because they were too difficult to incorporate. Excel is a versatile and widely used tool, but it can have limitations. Some of the challenges faced when using Excel include the following:
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Data limitations: The size of data that can be handled in Excel is limited, which can lead to slow performance or data corruption when dealing with large amounts of data.
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Accuracy: manual data entry can result in incorrect or missing data, leading to incorrect planning and order tracking.
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Scalability: Excel is not designed for large-scale enterprise use, making it difficult to accommodate the growing needs of a business over time.
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Lack of real-time data: Using Excel for MRP often requires manual updates, making it difficult to get real-time data and insights.
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Limited security: Excel does not have built-in security features, making it vulnerable to data breaches or unauthorized access.
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Collaboration challenges: Sharing and collaborating on Excel spreadsheets can be challenging, especially when multiple people need to work on the same data simultaneously.
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The solution - Building a new ERP in Oracle APEX
The IT department evaluated several ERPs before deciding to modernize their ERP with integrated Material Planning and workflow using Oracle APEX. Maathra has conducted the gap analysis and documented their current business process. Later, the ERP development project was awarded to Maathra.
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Maathra designed the new ERP system and developed the Procure-to-Pay cycle using Oracle APEX.
Oracle APEX was chosen as the development platform due to its powerful and flexible architecture, which made it possible to build a robust and scalable solution that met the customer's specific requirements.
Results
The solution streamlined the Material Requirement Planning process and eliminated the limitations and hazards associated with using excel. The new system provided a centralized, efficient and organized way of managing the planning and order tracking process. This resulted in improved customer satisfaction, better tracking of inventory and enhanced decision-making capabilities for the management.
Tools & technologies
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Oracle Database
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Oracle APEX
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Oracle Rest Data Service
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Maathra ReportFactory