Russia: Chief information officers of the metallurgical companies cannot agree with colleagues

The metallurgy needs innovations, but top managers and Chief information officers disperse in determination of priority zones of investments. Such data were obtained during the industry research of IBS company which purpose was assessment of the current situation and perspectives of development of intellectual technologies, automation and IT in the metallurgical industry.

According to respondents during the research, the most important problems of the industry are at the moment connected with upgrade and increased operating capacity, development of a human capital. Among the main problems of the industry increase in prices for production resources and increase in prices for raw materials and also a staff shortage were called.

Almost every fifth respondent in response to a question of the main problems pointed to the insufficient level of industrial automation. And practically each of the polled experts agreed that development of metallurgical business in the majority of the directions requires implementation of an innovation.

Chief information officers of the metallurgical enterprises consider prime necessity of EDMS and management of financial flows, and their management  - CPM and schedule systems

At the same time according to a research, top managers and Chief information officers of the metallurgical companies disperse in determination of priority zones for investment on the near-term outlook. If the first consider such directions management of production efficiency (45%) and the system of strategic planning (36%), then the second group focused attention on management of financial flows (49%) and document flow (49%).

According to Andrey Ioltukhovsky, the director of business development of IBS company, the mentioned difference in approaches can be caused by the fact that Chief information officers owing to their duties should be engaged much in support and automation of routine auxiliary processes which are not so obvious to top managers, but without whom the company cannot "live". "Bosses concentrate the attention on those areas managements which directly affect results of business, in this case it is production efficiency and strategic planning", - he explained.

As showed poll of heads, in most the enterprises projects of workflow automation (56%), human resources managements (44%) and financial flows (33%) are already implemented. Other projects are implemented less than at a quarter of the enterprises. It was most less often told about the systems of strategic planning and risk management.

More than a half of respondents in both target groups indicated that in the closest years of their enterprise they plan implementation of large IT projects, and 39% of top managers and 55% of IT managers plan it with high probability. In a research it is noted that in general at the enterprises of the industry there is a considerable unrealized potential of further automation.