OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2008. By mid-May 2009, Belon Group will have created a unified corporate information system for managing supply chains on the Oracle E – Business Suite platform.

The Supply Chains Management sub-project is one of the components of the project of creating a corporate information system of enterprise management, which is now being implemented in the Company. The Company started implementing this sub-project together with KORUS Consulting in July 2008. It is primarily aimed at optimizing and standardizing the procurement management process, as well as at raising its effectiveness, and at reducing the expenditures for the purchase of material resources and services. Due to the automation of logistics processes, the operativeness and transparency of purchases will be enhanced, the information about storage and planned write-off of material resources will be structured, and the labour costs of a number of employees of the Group will be reduced.

The new system of supply chains management will be integrated into the 1S-based accounting and taxation system, which is currently used in the Group, as well as into the budgeting system and the reference and regulatory information management system, which are being created in the Group in parallel with the new system.

The sub-project is planned to cover the Company’s head office in Novosibirsk, the Belovo-Belon Office, OAO Sibir-Ugol Production Company, as well as all coal production and preparation facilities of Belon Group. In addition, the Inskaya Truck Company, Belon-Geologiya, Sibgormontazh, Belovopogruztrans, and the Heat Power Station Complex will be involved. Working groups for the sub-project implementation have already been created in the management company and at the enterprises. At the first stage, before October 2008, the task of the working group members will be to determine the requirements for realization of the procurement processes. Based on these requirements, a software product will be developed, later to service the business processes related to managing supply chains. This software will allow creating unified reference books, classifiers and reporting forms, as well as developing a procurement management standard which will be common for all enterprises of the Group. Testing of the new system is planned for January–March 2009, with the training of end users to be held in March 2009.

Introducing the new system is of strategic importance for Belon Group—this brand new advanced supply chains management system will allow the Company to sustain the costs of its coal products at the level of global standards.