Global Tobacco giant contracts Technology Associates, Dubai to implement business solution for Iran plant.

BAT, the world’s largest tobacco manufacturer setup a Tobacco plant in Tehran, Iran and found it difficult to deploy their global standard SAP solution at the plant, due to various restrictions. They were looking for a solution that was easy to deploy, while necessarily providing all Financial accounting & Material Management reporting for both local & corporate MIS. Due to legal issues (US trade embargo), they sought an application that ran on a Linux platform.

BAT, Tehran faced a problem of maintaining inventory at their various stock points viz Raw Material Stores, Finished Product Stores. Also they required a system that can account wastages and scrap during production of cigarettes. Locally all the transactions are in Iranian Rial but corporate MIS reports are expected to be in USD. Maintaining ever fluctuating Iranian Rial currency in their USD books of accounts was also a major task.

Technology Associates implemented Tally with extensive customizations for their manufacturing and MIS needs. The three critical customizations addressed were a) Cigarettes stick stock transfers from one store to the other, b) Manufacturing functions involving blend and c) Packaging functions involving material viz. Cotton, aluminium foils and packages. The customizations allowed users to enter / access information with ease. Previously the production was hindered due to unavailability of critical stocks without planning information available. With the implementation of our solution, BAT’s plant ensured that they never ran out of raw and packing materials during any of their production cycles. Another key area of address was wastage & scrap control. Automation of their multi-stock inventory configured in the material management module, helped plant management plan their production stock requirements in an optimal manner, thereby reducing wastage during production as well as reduce accumulation of scrap.

The system today enables the Material Management department to procure the manufacturing stock in alignment with the sales orders processed by way of a readymade report. The system maintains quality control of cigarettes by providing batch wise blend stock with ageing reports. The financial accounting department was trained to enter various aspects of accounting with options such as expenses monitoring against budgets for a period. Multi currency options of the system helped them easily enter transactions in IRR while internally accounting in USD. Various MIS reports viz Production Register, Purchases above the standard cost, MIS report for their HO, with Ledger wise &  Cost element split were also implemented.

Overcoming immense barriers including interactions with a Farsi language user-base, Technology Associates successfully implemented a fully functional process manufacturing solution at BAT, Tehran. The site is being supported remotely from the Technology Associates Dubai office