Probably the most satisfying thing about this implementation was that the target was reached, on time, despite tremendous uncertainty within the development environment. The quantity of customisation that was implemented was immense, and it was particularly gratifying to see this complexity settle down quickly.
Cost Savings and Efficiency Gains
Initially cost savings have been gained from the elimination over over 100 legacy systems and their interfaces.Cost Savings and Efficiency Gains: Data Quality Improvements
SAP enabled the increase in the quality of internal reporting for management and financial accounting data. This increase in quality came from two sources. The revision of both business requirements, and the systems engineering allowed any previously unnoticed glitches in the systems to be ironed out. The ease with which information could be pulled out of the new systems, allowed reports with accurate data to be prepared more easily.Cost Savings and Efficiency Gains: Reporting Lead Times
Lead times in report generation were reduced, for example for the critical month-end processing reports.Cost Savings and Efficiency Gains: Data Visibility Improvements
Greater visibility of costs was achieved through drill-down functionality. Drill-down functionality allows the dynamic linking of simple summary data structures to more complex data structures. For example, it is possible now to view a cost sheet for a division on-line, and query costs to their origin. SAP's modular structure encourages the linking of summary data and item data. What might be regarded as summary data in one module may be detailed item data in another module. The integration of the modules allows reports in one module to call upon the data in other modules. Providing greater visibility of costs puts power into the hands of cost controllers.Issues with Large Implementations
Complexity
Implementing a system as large as the Saudi Aramco SAP system introduces a level of complexity into every aspect of system development. Each milestone is itself a very complex task that has to be managed very carefully. In addition, delays in the production of a single milestone cannot be tolerated because of the enormous complexity of refactoring any implementation plans. This means that it is generally more efficient to spend more time and money in delivering any particuler milestone on time, than delaying the milestone and delaying other dependent milestones.Inertia
Large projects means large numbers of people all working together. It takes time for people to learn to work togetherCommunication and Cultural Issues
Communication on large projects is hampered by the amount of noise that is around.Function
My role varied from time to time as needs required, but I was generally a design, technical and implementation consultant, and sometimes team leader, specialising in the construction of the new architecture of SAP interfaces, which covered ALE, payments processing, management data and integration data. Customisation work, especially after the go-live concentrated on building audit and reporting customisations over the top and within the basic SAP modules. This last period also covered the rollout of planning (CO) for the company.Key Modules
Customising processes for FI-GL, FI-AP, CO, TR, HR-PA, AA.SAP Version
R3 4.6B and 4.6CUser base
3,000 users (Finance) 23,000 users (Total)
Picture: The Mosque outside the Saudi Aramco Headquarters
1. General role and tasks
General client support on SAP integration and interface issues and SAP design, maintenance and customisations.Liaison with expert business users, project management, legacy IT staff and SAP consultants over user requirements definition.
Presentation of solutions to meet business requirements.
Implementation of solutions, including business process definition, role definition changes, system development and coordination, and system architecture changes.
Definition of project technical procedures for implementation and production maintenance.
Advising management over risk issues with the rollout out of the SAP systems
2. Specific accomplishments
(categorised by SAP Module)Financials
Finance General Ledger - (FI-GL) Module
Interfacing monthly payroll from external legacy payroll system into FIInterfacing acquisition and depreciation balances from FI/CO to external GL
Interfacing HR global business travel and personal costs into FI General Ledger
Finance Accounts Payable (FI-AP) Module
Interfacing invoices from Employee Benefits systems to FI-AP (FB01/FB60)Customisation of international bank payments for UK Netherlands payments.
FI & CO Month End and Year End Processing
Advising and coordinating presentations and testing strategies for the various milestones of month-end and year-end implementation and processing.Controlling (CO) Module - (Planning, Actuals)
Interface and reporting labour costing and overtime statistics from external HR manpower timesheet and costing system interfaced to SAP-COCost allocation interfaces from service departments legacy systems to SAP-CO
SAP CO-FI reposting interface for summarisation of costs in FI
Conversion of legacy planning data for SAP-CO (KP06)
Designing validation system to support all legacy systems for uniquely identifying CO cost objects (WBS elements, PM and CO orders and cost centres) outside of SAP system
Implementation of customisation of integrated FI and CO period locking milestone solution to allow greater automation and control in accounting period-end processing (Transactions OKP1, OB52, Tables KAPS T001B)
Implementation of tighter user-id based period control processing (OKP1)
Implementation of customised planning locking functionality to allow selective locking by standard hierarchy node (KP06, KP46)
Implementation of automated report extraction processes to optimise both month-end processing and access of monthly reports.
Asset Accounting / Management (AA/AM) Module
Asset accounting conversion to SAP FI-AA using RAALTD01Customisation of standard AA conversion table BALTD to meet asset requirements
Interface Asset Accounting Master Data to external systems for reporting and tracking purposes
Design Excel interfaces for maintenance of Asset Master Data and transaction posting
Treasury (TR) Module
Interface memo records from external system to SAP TRInterfacing exchange rates out of SAP
Logistics
Plant Maintenance (PM) Module
Consultancy on integration issues between CO and PMHuman Resources Personnel Administration (HR-PA, PD) Module
Implementation of HR Manpower Headcount solution to provide management accounting (CO) reports based on specific customer requirements for manpower counting based of HR systems PA tables (Info types 1,2,3 and customised infotypes)Implementation of automated HR Master Data checking functions to audit and notify where HR data inconsistencies occur.
Basis Components BC
Implementation of replacement SE16 Table Display transaction to allow easier maintenance of user access of table displayMaintenance of a custom SAP system used for measuring and monitoring the lifecycle of internal project developments.
SAP System upgrades - 4.6c, 4.7, Hotpacks, Configuration Management
Advising and coordinating testing strategy and techniques for upgrades for SAP version 4.6c, SAP version 4.7 and SAP Hotpacks.
Basis Components - Middleware - Application Link Enabling MID-ALE
Error analysis on ALE componentsAdvising on HR ALE components for Personnel Master Data that needed to be implemented in orderto support full CO-HR integration for managment reporting of Headcount Reporting