Firstly Finances
PKE was formally established in June 2000. In September 2000, a uniform concept was developed to handle the financial and accounting side of all its entities, and shortly after, IFS Financials™ was implemented to handle all financial events across the company. PKE utilizes various financial and accounting applications in its power stations. IFS Financials has been adapted to the variations in accounting at the various plants. Using IFS Financials, every power station is defined as a separate company working on its own data and running its own accounts, based on a uniform plan of accounts for the entity, which guarantees that accounting records are governed by common principles. The minute detail of the central plan of accounts ensures a complete record of accounting events in accordance with prevailing legal requirements and also takes into account the needs of the individual power stations with regard to their own internal analyses.
Next Step
Following the implementation of IFS Financials throughout the entire company, PKE’s board of directors decided to unify and integrate the remaining management support solutions used throughout PKE. The systems chosen were IFS Distribution™, IFS Maintenance™, IFS Fuels™, IFS Document Management™ and IFS Personal Portal™. The software was implemented sequentially. A project organization was appointed, along with five implementation teams. PKE S.A.’s chief IT development specialist, Piotr Tudzierz, explains, “We initially installed the 2003 version of IFS Distribution, IFS Maintenance and IFS Fuels in the Katowice Combined Heat & Power generating plant. We chose one of our smaller entities for this exercise, because we wanted to conduct a model implementation to get to know the problems that might occur. For us, this was a bit like an exercise on a military firing range, and the experience gained was of great assistance during the work on the second stage, i.e. in the simultaneous implementation of these three modules in the other smaller power stations. The third stage involved an upgrade of IFS Financials in all PKE power stations and an upgrade of IFS Distribution, Maintenance and Fuels in the PKE entities already using those applications. The fourth and final stage, begun in 2004, involving the implementation of IFS Maintenance, Distribution and Fuels in the £agisza power station, was concluded by March 2004.”
Topology
Implementation of the 2000 version of IFS Financials was based on a centralized model—a single server at head office and a single database serving all users in the field of finances. And so it has remained to the present day. The supplementary IFS systems, i.e. for distribution, maintenance and fuel management, are distributed over four servers. The chief element of the data base for these applications is located in the Management Centre and serves five smaller power stations and the head office, while three larger—Jaworzno III, £aziska and Siersza—have their own servers for these applications. In finances, IFS Applications™ operates in a centralized topology. For the remaining modules, IFS Applications operates in a dispersed topology. Piotr Tudzierz again, “Implementing these applications, we realized it would be best to use the existing IT infrastructure in these power stations. At the time of installation, PKE power stations had servers with satisfactory computing power, and the IT environments of these institutions still serve the applications they use perfectly well. Considering the topology of the company’s IT system, we were also concerned about whether it could cope with our telecommunication links. It should be remembered that there are some 2,300 IFS Applications users in the company, of which approximately 1,100 are defined on the server in the head office, with several hundred in the company’s three larger entities. However, the decision to go for a dispersed solution was based on the need to use the existing hardware infrastructure.”
IFS Financials
IFS Financials implementation team manager, Ryszard Mamcarz, adds, “Our owning a uniform finances application quickly proved advantageous, thanks to the uniform database and access to information directly from head office. Those who are authorized have direct access to all the information accumulated in the database. Reports to meet the needs of regular analyses are drawn up directly. The system is a tool. We use standard reports, reports created on our instructions, and we also create reports ourselves using standard tools, such as Crystal Reports or SQL. The large amount of data accumulated in the system ensures us total freedom in generating these reports.”
IFS Fuels
Fuel costs make up approximately 50% of the company’s operating costs. In the course of a year, PKE has to record the delivery of some 10 million tons of coal, 40 thousand tons of fuel oil and approximately 30 million cubic meters of gas, among other things. Every delivery of fuel has to be measured, and for every delivery there are set parameters that help streamline the company’s operating costs. PKE is the first entity with its own fuel base at its disposal, composed of two mines, which account for 30–40% of the company’s fuel needs. Every delivery, even from its own works, has to be recorded and must also comply with quality and price parameters. Apart from its own supplies, PKE has over 30 different fuel suppliers. These contracts are regularly followed up with respect to quantity, value and quality. Currently, the system automatically checks that deliveries are accurate, chemically analyzing fuel deliveries against contracts, and alerts our staff when it becomes necessary to intervene with suppliers. Hand checking such numbers of analyses and contracts would be extremely cumbersome. IFS Fuels implementation team manager Tomasz Szynol, says, “The implementation team was extremely committed to their task because there was so much at stake. The fuels area of our operations requires the generation and external transmission of complex reports. Having a uniform system for data acquisition, it is finally possible to integrate all the entities that generate such reports. Doing this manually was complicated, so when the opportunity arose to automate these actions, the implementation was approached with considerable enthusiasm. Some 40 people now use the IFS Fuels component. This system now makes it possible to prepare the required reports on a regular basis. Thanks to automation, those 40 people control almost 50% of the company’s costs without any difficulty. Apart from fuels purchase costs, other essential factors are the directions of deliveries and the forwarding agents responsible for deliveries. The IFS Fuels component controls the chain of deliveries, making it possible to check everything, optimize delivery and inventory ratios (distances and type of forwarding agent) and, primarily, to collect essential information quickly and in a uniform fashion. This makes it possible to identify the direction of deliveries and the distances involved when planning further deliveries of coal. Until now, this had been a difficult task.”
IFS Distribution
Distribution was implemented earlier in three power stations. Although this is a single tool, various approaches were used. In the large power stations, more areas were embraced by this component, whereas in the smaller power stations, not all the procedures connected with distribution and logistics were supported. For this reason, it was agreed that the component implemented throughout the company would be based on the best versions at the three largest power stations. Thus, before implementing IFS Distribution, a corporate version was decided on. IFS Distribution implementation team manager, Wies³aw Kula, commented, “Logistics serves all areas connected with distribution as well as related procedures. In our case, we did not limit ourselves to materials turnover, but have many procedures that are related to distribution data, such as reporting to the central statistics office and annual requirement plans to assist public orders. We also include such areas as the purchase and distribution of working clothes, the tools department (tool purchases and the supervision of their use—at any given moment we can locate a given tool). We would also like to support the process of purchases connected with public orders and purchases connected with achieving the ISO 14000 norm.” Sales is a separate part of the IFS component, and the tool to serve this area was specially developed to meet the needs of the company i.e. special invoices used for supplying electrical energy. In view of the specific nature of the sales of electrical energy and heat and the particular sales environment — invoices, attachments, listings and the way accounts are settled—this process was separated from the basic distribution system. The differences are small, and mainly related to documents created and the invoices themselves.
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IFS Maintenance
Maintenance administration is an internal activity and is not subject to external accounting controls. The implementation of IFS Maintenance differed from that of other IFS component also with regard to the number of users, as these components have the most users. In the beginning, we took an approach similar to that for other components, but this was soon abandoned. IFS Maintenance implementation team manager, Rafa³ Bryjak, says, “The IFS Maintenance component, from the 2003 version of IFS Applications, is richer in functionality than its predecessors. So we coordinated and approved a single version for all the company’s entities. Maintenance was implemented from scratch, and entities using 2000 version were upgraded to the corporate version. This process involved several stages. First, a uniform version of the software was approved. Then, the 2003 version was implemented to upgrade power stations using the 2000 version of the software. In the three largest power stations, the modules operate on their own servers; the remaining five entities use a common database on the head office’s server. Today, a single version of IFS Maintenance operates throughout the entire company. In practical terms, there are employees in every organizational cell of the company who can report faults, reserve materials, order services, conduct accounts, etc. Thus, this component serves the largest group of users, amounting to approximately 1,000 people.”
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