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New apps to give Madura an IT edge

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CIOL Bureau
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For branded apparel major Madura Garments, investments in IT is a continuous process. Being the first in the Indian garment industry to implement SAP's mySAP AFS in 2002 (Apparel and footwear Solution), the company has always been a frontrunner in terms of IT adoption.

Currently, Madura is getting set to roll out an enterprise portal for its employees and channel partners by July 2005. Also in the pipeline is a Proof of Concept (POC) RFID

implementation. “We are ready to take the risk in IT implementations, as it always gives us a first mover advantage”, says Singh while running CIOL through the company's latest IT projects.

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What are your plans for the enterprise portal? How

does it help in Knowledge Management?

With the majority

of tasks and projects in today's knowledge-based economy requiring teamwork,

the role of the information systems have expanded from passive information

kiosks to a new forum for organizational interactions. With portal

implementation we are assisting the transformation of Madura Garments to be

more customer-focused, and to deliver effective and more efficient services for

business partners, employees and customers. The purpose is to aggregate and

provide access to the full spectrum of information and services through a

single interface tailored for the individual group/user and requiring only a

single authentication process.

style="mso-spacerun: yes"> What are the key features of the portal?

And who is your solutions provider?

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We are in the

process of implementing SAP Enterprise portal (rollout by July '05).
An important feature is that services and resources

would be accessible at any time from any place. The constituent features that

make up the MG portal are:
 

style='font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> style="mso-spacerun: yes">      -

General features such as email, announcements, discussions, bulletin

boards 
 

      - Department/Function area silos viz. retail team, PE team,

AS team, etc
style='font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;letter-spacing:

-.25pt;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'> 

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style='font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-style:

italic'>- Partner-focused portal for distributors & agents with specific

content and functionality around on-line collaboration and business-to-business

transactions. 

-

Knowledge management portal for effective knowledge sharing within the

organization, which facilitates culture of teamwork, learning through sharing

of best practices and provides easy access to information.
 

Please elaborate on your RFID plans 

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We are planning to implement RFID solution in the retail

front end as an initial proof of concept (POC). Once the real time benefits are

proved we will roll it out in a phased manner. Initially, all the garments

going to a particular retail store from our central warehouse will be tagged.

After studying the benefits, the senior management will take a call on the roll

out plans. 

For RFID implementation, we are in discussion with a couple

of solution providers including HP and Wipro Infotech. The POC implementation

should start in the next two to three months. We plan to use non-disposable

tags, initially. RFID tagging is expected to bring in increased sales, better

labor efficiency, easy stock taking and productivity enhancement.  

Have you implemented HRMS? How does it help?

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We have implemented SAP HRMS. As a service based company the

training and development of our employees is vital. Automating HR

administration and implementing employee self service portal would;

- Improve the employee management

relationship

- Reduce employee calls to HR

staff and streamline routine data collection, reducing administrative costs and

freeing HR professionals to spend more time on higher priorities. style='letter-spacing:-.25pt'>

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- With expanded access to multi-level direct report information,

managers can view training history, evaluate team skills, check internal

applicant status, and get compensation and performance history at any time,

helping them to plan and make critical staff decisions.

- Employees would be able to view

appropriate HR information whenever and wherever needed with role-based access

through standard Web browsers.
 

mySAP AFS runs through both the domestic business

cycle and export cycle. Will you please explain how both work seamlessly?

The business processes of Madura Garments have been

grouped into five major categories as Planning and Demand management,

Procurement and inbound logistics, Production execution and shop floor

management, Sales and outbound logistics and Financial accounting and cost

management. The SAP system runs parallel through both domestic and export

business. All import and export activities (master maintenance, transactions,

reporting) carried out for both Madura Garments brands as well as for Contract

Exports are covered within the scope of SAP. Some activities for the above

related to import and export documentation are handled through a SAP approved

third party software.

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