TAdviser Interview: The chief information officer of ChTPZ Roman Zaretsky - about the strategy of development for information technologies

Roman Zaretsky: "The white metallurgy" is a new standard of metallurgical production. Traditionally production of pipes belonged to ferrous metallurgy, but modern hi-tech workshops of ChTPZ Group broke down these stereotypes. In them it is possible to work even in white clothes – and the image of "white metallurgy" was born.

The company turned "White metallurgy" into the whole philosophy which main idea – transformation and continuous improvement. All staff of the company is in continuous process of improvement of own production technologies, the world around, the life – all.

Roman Zaretsky: It is impossible to tell that information technologies are the main thing in the course of improvement of the enterprise, but their role is very big. It is impossible to imagine modern production without IT. Any high-precision machines and the equipment, the digitized data on product characteristics, production and technology process of its production – all this information technologies.

Roman Zaretsky: It is separate department which is flush with other departments of a division and submits directly to the CEO.

Roman Zaretsky: It depends on a class of the made decision. There are solutions concerning only IT – for example, creation of a backup system of data. They are accepted at the level of department. And here the solutions concerning business systems of the company are accepted together with other divisions.

Often the IT is the catalyst of this or that change. A task of IT department in this case – to show to the head of other division that our offer is effective and will yield them a certain result. It is very important that the person from business management and production was involved in development process and implementations of IT solution for its division, otherwise the positive result will not be.

Roman Zaretsky: Not any IT solution can give a financial assessment. For example, we made the decision on ERP system implementation. Those efficiency evaluations which we give in a decision instant can be based only on benchmarkinga of quite high level. Respectively, management of the company can this benchmarking or believe, or is not present. Upon implementation and start of the solution it is already possible to make measurements and to watch as far as they differ from initial forecasts.

Roman Zaretsky: Yes, and we try to involve them in joint work - at the beginning of April, 2017 we together approved IT strategy.

Roman Zaretsky: First of all, from review and complex upgrade of all our processes. Since the lowest level of management of industrial equipment, and finishing with a reporting preparation at the level of all group. It becomes to understand what processes can be improved and automated.

I will note that feature of ChTPZ Group that the company developed 95% of the IT processes independently - we practically had no external contractors. At some point we looked how other companies work and understood that most of them goes the way implementations of some standard solutions.

Cornerstone of our IT strategy is transition to the IT solutions offered by the market now. In Russia the prime vendor of solutions for the industry is SAP, and we study first of all their technologies. As for the systems of lower shop level - the MES systems - the market does not propose the unambiguous "boxed" solution. All companies have these different products. Severstal, for example, implemented Danieli.

Roman Zaretsky: We now at a choice stage. In terms of strategy we want to select the company if not proposing the ready-made "boxed" solution, then having a large number of successful implementations of the solutions in Russia. At the same time we understand that the "boxed" solution for workshops is not always possible because production processes at all different. Besides, extent of customization at implementation is very high.

Now we handle an implementation issue in all workshops of the main production of MES – systems. Also we do not want that our employees of workshops manually entered some indicators therefore we pay much attention to an APCS – they will just have to provide integration between the low level of the equipment and higher level of an information system.

Roman Zaretsky: APCS – at a study stage. A MES system – at a choice stage. Now we held several tenders and narrowed the list of systems which we watch, to three.

Roman Zaretsky: It solutions of Gidra and Danieli companies. The last is widespread in Russia - Severstal uses a system, OMK is going to implement it. Also we look at solutions of SAP company as we addressed it for ERP. But there are risks as MES-SAP solutions in Russia are not implemented anywhere. We are going to start the project on a MES system by the end of April.

As for an ERP circuit, we broke process of implementation into several stages. The first stage – pilot on which we carried out debugging of technology of implementation. Now the pilot phase of ERP connected with everything, as for personnel management, payroll of consolidation and preparation of the reporting of an IFRS by all ChTPZ Group prepares for transition to commercial operation. Perhaps, the choice of these models seems strange, but a certain logic is here.

Roman Zaretsky: The system of consolidation and preparation of the management reporting – certain quick win ("a fast victory") which can be shown to the management with the words "it works". Yes, meanwhile still some data at early stages are collected in a semi-manual status, but we already have a single window in which all information is consolidated. Gradually all levels of business will be connected to a single system of "one window".

By the way in ChTPZ Group, as well as in other industrial enterprises, one of the main partners of IT department in implementation of new information technologies is the financial directorate. Financiers suggested to automate the system of a financial reporting preparation within a pilot project. But we needed to attract to it and other divisions, and we turned on in it processes of personnel office-work and payroll – here too it is quickly enough possible to see result from implementation of new IT solutions.

If to speak about terms, then we are going to start the block of consolidation of an IFRS on all perimeters at the end of April, 2018, and blocks of "single window" for the management reporting and the automated payroll calculation – to the second half of the year 2018.

Roman Zaretsky: Speak about it so far early – we did not enter a phase of their implementation yet. By the way, we had one more small project: all ChTPZ Group passes to uniform electronic document management now. Earlier we had some solutions, separate and rather old. The first phase of this project is already complete: everything, as for organizational and distribution documentation in ChTPZ Group, works in a single system. Here it is already possible to sum up some results.

Roman Zaretsky: Loading in terms of document handling significantly decreased. The feature of the new workflow system is an automatic routing. Earlier all documents passed through the head of department, and he distributed them along approval routes. Now the program itself distributes these routes. It is still difficult to digitize it in some money: we started the project directly on New Year's Eve, and in a month digitization will not be demonstrative.

Roman Zaretsky: Quite so. We only in the middle of 2017 began vigorous activity.

Roman Zaretsky: No. The department exists long ago, but generally it was engaged in the current activities for support of the existing technologies. Of course, there were also new projects, but they remained local. Those projects on which we work now - large-scale complex, expensive and affect the company in general.

Roman Zaretsky: We have a few other principle of management of capital costs. But, in general yes, capex is selected for projects.

Roman Zaretsky: They are essential, but I cannot call them yet. However, they at the level of our colleagues on the industry.

Roman Zaretsky: It is a lot of. It is a lot of.

Roman Zaretsky: I mean, among the companies of our level. I think, our costs approximately at the cost level of OMK.

Roman Zaretsky: I calculate that we successfully implement all begun projects and plans – they just five-year-old, but we will aim to implement them quicker. I would like that in the field of IT we did not become worse than others the company of the metallurgical industry, and created a backlog under development of the innovation projects: also we designate to work with Big Data, virtual reality. But these projects require existence of a core infrastructure - its creation we now and we are engaged.

In general all industry moves towards increase in efficiency today. And it is possible when we reduce influence of a human factor on production. Everything goes …

Roman Zaretsky: Not absolutely. To decrease in a share of low effective manual work and transfer of people to other positions. Appearance of the robot on production does not exclude need on it of the person, just now the person not himself will carry out some routine task, and to control as it is executed by the equipment.

Roman Zaretsky: Certainly. But ChTPZ Group moves ahead and in this direction - we have a developed program of corporate training for employees and there is the education center in Pervouralsk where according to the educational program "The future of White metallurgy" students study. There very much attention is paid just to production robotization.

Roman Zaretsky: You know when I only came to work to ChTPZ and got acquainted with the company, one shop manager told me: "We built Height 239 workshop in order that one way workshops the machine with metal came around, I clicked, and other end was left by a ready pipe". This – complete robotization of production.

Roman Zaretsky: So far not, though a system at "Height 239" at us advanced.

Roman Zaretsky: Of course. Technology, the robotic future is possible - the speech goes not about androids here, and about the robot who is engaged in welding, for example. This is the robot who on coordinates itself knows where to him to bring a wire and with what mode to kindle it to draw a line. There are robots who by certain parameters check quality of this welded line or regulate movement of pipes on workshop. All tasks, control and executive in terms of production process, are easily robotized.

But in order that to robotize them, we need to add the APCS level to each item of equipment. It will give to a system a task what to make and in what mode and also to receive a feedback about results of accomplishment of a task. On the basis of this feedback the decision what task will be the following will be made: for example, in addition to boil thoroughly a pipe, to send it to the second circle or the next production stage.

Roman Zaretsky: Everything cannot still be robotized - it is very expensive. Without fail it is necessary to robotize collecting and storage of technology information, and still control of observance of the production technology, especially where the deviation can affect product quality.

Process of melting of metal in "Iron Ozone 32" at our Pervouralsk enterprise can serve as an example. To receive metal with certain characteristics, we should make correctly its "recipe" to which it is necessary to add expensive components – doping elements, ferroalloys. They can be added much, but it will be costly, or on the contrary it is not enough for ensuring the necessary properties of metal.

Therefore, it is necessary to calculate even before process of melting what will be result when adding this or that quantity of additional components. As soon as we are able to collect necessary amount of data about such production processes, we will be able to analyze, optimize and improve a production system, proposing new productive solutions.

One of the directions of our IT strategy in the long term is five years just creation and active use of an asset of data which ChTPZ Group has.