Tag Archives: enterprise resource planning

RPMGlobal’s enterprise mining software solutions win SAP seal of approval

RPMGlobal says it has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to its SAP partnership and providing interoperable, enterprise software solutions to the mining industry after receiving an SAP integration certification for its enterprise product offerings.

The integration green light was provided by SAP certifying that RPM’s enterprise solutions can integrate with SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended Edition using standard integration technologies. These certifications further support RPM’s development of cloud enabled solutions, the company said.

RPM and SAP have been working together for well over a decade and RPM secured the latest designation following a detailed process whereby separately deployable components were put through stringent qualification procedures to earn the integration approval, it explained. This entailed RPM’s integration connectors and product architecture being scrutinised by SAP’s development laboratory.

The SAP certification is a significant indication of the technical alignment and interoperability capabilities between the solutions, according to RPM. It will will enable the exchange of information between SAP and RPM’s enterprise product offerings which span the entire mine lifecycle, from design and scheduling, through to maintenance and finance.

Paul Beesley, RPM’s Chief Technology Officer, said the SAP certification was a significant endorsement of the company’s quality technical infrastructure which underpins its enterprise offerings.

“RPM remains committed to a robust software integration strategy that builds complimentary products to support the SAP technology stack,” he said. “This enables our customers to have a smooth and direct flow of business data between SAP solutions and our software offerings so it’s very rewarding to receive this additional certification.”

With more mining operations implementing digital transformation initiatives, connecting disparate systems to foster the exchange of critical information is an industry imperative, Beesley added.

With enterprise integration forming a core part of RPM’s philosophy from the beginning, Beesley said the recent certification builds upon the company’s ongoing commitment to working with SAP.

“SAP remains the industry standard for Enterprise Resource Planning software used by mining companies,” he said. “This certification ensures our current and future customers can integrate operational technology with business processes to achieve a connected mining enterprise that provides a single source of truth across the organisation.”

RPMGlobal looks back on 30 years of XERAS mining software

RPMGlobal is celebrating the longevity of one of the mining industry’s most trusted financial budgeting tools, XERAS, which turns 30 this month.

XERAS was first introduced to the mining industry in 1990 in an English desktop format, and within a year or two, had half a dozen users, according to RPM.

RPMGlobal has transformed the XERAS desktop product into a corporate enterprise solution, XERAS Enterprise, which, it says, is regarded as the budgeting solution of choice for many of the world’s top tier mining companies around the globe.

Now operating off a server-orientated database, XERAS Enterprise provides standardised, integrated budgets within a single environment, which enables users across all levels of the organisation to make informed financial decisions.

XERAS Enterprise’s zero-based budgeting approach delivers true cost control, transparency and financial agility to the budgeting and forecasting process.

Reflecting on 30 years of continuous product investment, RPMGlobal Chief Executive Officer, Richard Mathews, attributed the software’s success to constantly listening, and acting upon, customer’s evolving needs and challenges.

“The uptake of XERAS Enterprise over the years is a testament to the company’s commitment to fostering collaborative partnerships with our customers that places their needs at the front and centre of our product innovation strategy,” he said.

According Mr Mathews, staying on top of evolving market trends is critical to remaining at the forefront of change.

“At RPMGlobal, we are focused on keeping pace with the trends that are shaping the industry, like remote and cloud computing are currently,” he said.

“When XERAS was first created, for example, most mining operations were run as individual businesses. But that has changed over time.

“As organisations have assimilated into larger, multi-site operations, the focus has turned to consistent corporate level solutions and XERAS Enterprise is a key offering in our integrated enterprise suite of products.”

RPMGlobal’s innovative capabilities and ingrained knowledge of the end-to-end mining value chain have helped underpin the continuous improvement process that has led to the re-architecture of XERAS Enterprise throughout its 30-year evolution, it said.

For example, XERAS Enterprise can be integrated into any Enterprise Resource Planning system to deliver a live, zero-based forecasting environment, the company says. This significantly reduces the time it takes to generate budgets and forecasts, delivering companies an accurate financial position at any given time.

Last year marked one of the biggest re-architectural advances for the XERAS products in years with the introduction of XERAS Enterprise 3.0. This release included an updated user experience, improved database technology and enhanced enterprise capabilities.

Mathews said the company remained proud of the continued modernisation of the financial modelling software, which has helped ensure its longevity in the market.

“XERAS Enterprise is a true 21st century software offering that provides trust in the numbers by standardising processes and removing manual data entry, while also allowing for agility and scalability that isn’t available in any other system,” he said.

“Future step-changes in the offering will continue to be driven by customer engagement which involves understanding the client’s usage and requirements and finding solutions that can best fulfil those needs.”

RPMGlobal adds predictive element to mine maintenance solutions with IMAFS buy

RPMGlobal has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire Canada-headquartered, inventory optimisation management software company, IMAFS.

As a Software-as-a-Service and cloud-delivered provider of inventory optimisation software, IMAFS has more than 20 years experience developing and selling its flagship IMAFS product, RPMGlobal says.

The IMAFS solution is an inventory management and forecasting software solution that connects to an organisation’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and uses proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to greatly improve inventory management, according to the company. The product has been designed and built for the sole purpose of optimising the inventory holdings of large asset-intensive companies.

RPM CEO and Managing Director, Richard Mathews (left, pictured with David Batkin, Executive General Manager – Technology Consulting), said: “We are very pleased to have concluded negotiations to acquire IMAFS and are really looking forward to welcoming the Quebec-based IMAFS team into the wider RPM family. The product is a great fit with the existing RPM product suite and further builds on our cloud and optimisation offerings.”

RPM explained: “In the mining industry, management and optimisation, specifically the maintenance, repair and operational (MRO) inventory is critical to ensuring operational continuity and attainment of production targets.

“The key to accurately forecasting any type of inventory is understanding future demand. Mining MRO inventory optimisation is often a unique challenge to solve due to low volume and/or erratic turnover with long lead times, high component costs and the complex logistics associated with operating in remote locations leading to companies over-stocking parts inventory and tying up capital unnecessarily.”

When it comes to mining, properly managing MRO inventory is vital, RPM says. If the plant, or key pieces of equipment (loaders, trucks, conveyors, etc) stop operating because spare parts are not available, a costly operational problem develops. A poor inventory optimisation process can result in a company ordering inventory urgently due to reactive inventory processes rather than predictive inventory processes.

IMAFS has developed a hosted subscription service that, RPM says, allows inventory data to be extracted from a company’s ERP product or Computer Maintenance Management system and analysed programmatically.

IMAFS’ proprietary and cutting-edge algorithms also include AI logic incorporating parameters such as transport mode, carrier, weather, customs, seasonality, holidays, availability, and many other data points. IMAFS will also identify excess or obsolete stock that can be returned or disposed of, according to RPM.

Mathews added: “Four years ago, we acquired iSolutions because we understood the importance of planning maintenance in parallel with production. AMT stands alone when it comes to forecasting the lifecycle cost of an asset using its dynamic lifecycle costing engine. This real-time engine accurately predicts when customers will require major parts and components.

“In other words, by going back to first principles (as AMT does), we can predict the future demand that can be factored into IMAFS’ advanced AI algorithms. That future demand is the critical piece of the puzzle so that IMAFS can optimise procurement and management of critical parts and components.”

Mathews says the AMT solution is used by the major OEM’s and their dealer network. These organisations can take forecasts from their customers into the IMAFS product, thereby assisting them in optimising their spare parts inventory.

“While we haven’t had a product to do this in the past, we have been involved in a number of discussions with dealers and miners to do exactly this,” he said.

Robert Lamarre, IMAFS Founder, said: “It is immensely pleasing to see the passion emanating from the team at RPM to championing inventory optimisation and cloud-driven enterprise integration. We are convinced that the IMAFS product suite will benefit from increased investment and the sales and marketing support that RPM can offer these products right around the world.”

Following completion, Lamarre will continue his involvement with promoting IMAFS through a third-party business partner authorised to market and distribute IMAFS products to customers in North America outside of mining and resources.

The acquisition is expected to close on November 25, 2020 subject to several conditions precedent and customary completion events.

ERP system ups inventor accuracy at Weir Minerals Africa’s Kitwe facility

Weir Minerals Africa’s newly upgraded Kitwe facility in Zambia, its hub for central and east Africa, is benefiting from the use of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that has seen inventory accuracy rates rise, according to the company’s Luhann Holtzhausen.

The branch officially opened in early 2018 and boasts a state-of-the-art logistics and supply chain management systems to match those at Weir Minerals Africa’s main distribution hub in Alrode, near Johannesburg, it said.

Luhann Holtzhausen, Weir Minerals Africa Supply Chain Director, said: “Our Kitwe branch now has a 100% location-controlled warehouse that runs off our ERP system with Wi-Fi-enabled scanners in place. This has resulted in the achievement of inventory accuracy rates in the high 90s.

Holtzhausen continued: “The technology and technical capacity in this facility enables us to pick and bin items in real time. This will match any other system that customers may have seen globally and is also a benchmark within Zambia.”

The new warehouse is all under one roof, with high visibility through natural and artificial lighting, where every product is clearly labelled with bin location and barcodes for easy tracking, Weir said. Shelving of up to three metres high keeps all items neatly stacked, easy to identify and quick to retrieve.

“The right goods in the right quantity in the right place means that when a customer asks for an item, we know that we have it and can find it without delays,” Holtzhausen said.

As part of the company’s operation-wide system, the stockholding of the Kitwe warehouse can be viewed in real time by the supply chain management team in Johannesburg. Holtzhausen emphasised the importance of the ERP system’s ability to track trends in customer usage in a systematic and methodical manner, to avoid any stock-outs on mine sites.

Lack of timeous access to spare parts and equipment can be costly in terms of operational downtime, particularly at remote mines that take time to reach, Weir said.

“In addition to the high accuracy of our data on warehouse inventory, our systems also give us end-to-end velocity measurement to monitor the flow of goods from receipt at our warehouses to the actual time of delivery at the customer’s location,” Holtzhausen said.

Weir Minerals Africa has 75 stocking locations across the southern and central African region, and ships nearly 100,000 items each year from its main distribution hub in Alrode.