ERP Monolith

"ERP Monolit" — the complex, integrated scalable solution for resource management of large and medium-sized enterprises allowing to model real business processes practically of any complexity. The information systems constructed on the basis of "ERP Monolit" are successfully used many years in the companies of national scale, as in Russia, and abroad.

Till 2008 a system was called Monolith of SQL

2020: Start of a system "Monolith: EPM" under control of MS SQL of 2019

In January, 2020 Monolit-Info provided a multifunction product – "The Monolith: EPM", designed to increase efficiency of activity of the enterprise, to optimize business management methods. The updated system includes instruments of calculation of scenarios of business planning, budgeting, the analysis of profitability. The developer reported about it on March 11, 2020.

"Monolith: EPM" is the next stage of development of a system "the Monolith: ERP" – "The analysis of profitability", responsible for correlation of income and expenses for assessment of profitability of sales of goods, the partner, the sales channel and also for calculation of planned profitability and ensuring its comparability to the actual profitability (due to accomplishment of calculations on the basis of uniform model).

Business development at the large FMCG companies led to requirements for increase in accuracy of efficiency evaluation of product sales in outlets (It should be noted that for the companies of national scale the quantity of such points exceeds hundreds of thousands of units). Thus there were tasks and requirements for processing of large volumes of data which were beyond opportunities of the module "Analysis of Profitability". It caused development of a universal EPM system capable to obtain data from different sources, initial for processing: from the systems of primary accounting, databases of corporate storage and also storages which gained distribution recently like Data Lake or "the lake of data".

An EPM system integrates in itself different planning tools, monitoring, managements and on their basis allows to create key performance indicators and also to trace them. Thanks to such systems development and result of the made decisions is predicted, business becomes transparent for heads.

An EPM system solves problems of setting of strategic objectives, their further correction during testing, provides tracking of KPI and the following components:

• the factors stimulating or interfering achievement of the necessary result;
• financial performance on the basis of the created reporting.

"Monolith: EPM" received a settlement core based on MS SQL2019 which allows to process very large volumes of information. The flexible and universal system of the description of scenarios implements an opportunity to configure practically any design models connected with problems of distribution, and the device MS OLAP which is built in a system allows users to create and manage analytical cubes independently.

A system has an opportunity to be integrated with different external systems for receiving and providing calculation results. It allows to use "the Monolith: EPM" as system module "Monolith: ERP" and as separate solution.

Functionality of a system "Monolith: EPM":

Automated system "Monolith: EPM" - the universal solution having ample opportunities of increase in enterprise performance:

• Developments of strategy and the purpose with further adaptation under the changing conditions.
• Calculation of different profits models, efficiency, operational planning and budgeting.
• Carrying out monitoring of key indicators of efficiency.
• Reportings in the form of tables and charts for the analysis of dynamics of business processes.
• The analysis and processing of large volumes of the weighed solutions and development of strategy given for acceptance.

2019: ERP Monolith 7.0

On May 28, 2019 the Monolit-Info company announced a release of the next version of the software package "ERP Monolith 7.0" and published the expanded description of functionality of a system.

In the version "ERP Monolith 7.0" functionality of the following components is significantly expanded:

• Built-in system of electronic document management (IIM/ECM). A system received the updated interface and is transferred to a cloud platform of "Microsoft Azure".
• Yard Management. The updated mobile application for management of a warehouse and traffic flows in the yard is released.

The centralized module "the Monolith is switched on: Master data management" for centralized operation by basic data of the company and quality control.

Within the provided version systems were transferred to the centralized platform:

• "Monolith: Purchase management";
• "Monolith: DRP" (planning and management of distribution);
• "Monolith: Control of production processes";
• "Monolith: Operational planning of production";
• "Monolith: Tenders".

2016

Functionality of a system

As of May, 2016 functionality of a product following:

Management of finance and controlling

The functional modules "ERP Monolith" referred to a circuit "Management of finance and controlling" provide solving of tasks of automation of financial, tax and management accounting, preparation of financial statements (including – according to requirements of the IFRS and US GAAP), financial planning and budgeting, the analysis of profitability.

The circuit "Management of finance and controlling" of the ERP Monolith complex includes the following functional units:

• Ledger
• Settlings with partners
• Management of OS and intangible assets
• Project accounting
• Supplier contracts
• Management of finance. Financial planning
• Reporting under the IFRS and US GAAP
• Budget management
• Production cost value
• Analysis of profitability
• Component analysis
• Tax accounting

Supply chain management

Structure "ERP Monolit" switches on the modules for solving of tasks of supply chain management providing control automation with material stocks, transport logistics, control of production processes, purchase management. The portal of suppliers of transport services allows to construct the most effective chain of work with the transport organizations. The module "Tenders" will provide the organization of tenders with automation of process of formation of tender conditions and the choice of the supplier according to the configured criteria of preference.

Solutions Monolit-Info in the field of control automation by a supply chain are especially effective for the companies having several production sites, providing possibilities of the centralized control and the analysis of purchasing logistics in case of geographically distributed responsibility for accomplishment of business functions.

The circuit includes "Management of the supply chain" of the ERP Monolith complex the following functional units:

• Purchase management
• The stocks managed by the supplier (VMI)
• Management of material stocks
• Portal of suppliers and carriers
• Transport logistics
• Management of the warehouse (cargo) yard (YMS)
• Organization of tenders and auctions
• Management of physical assets of the enterprise (EAM)
• Control of use of energy resources
• Control of production processes
• Accounting of alcoholic products, integration with the Unified State Automated Information System

Planning and scheduling

The modules which are part "ERP Monolit" planning and schedulings provide the solution of a complex of problems of process automation of the approved planning on all "supply chain": from a demand forecast on products before planning of shipments, production and purchases taking into account the main resource restrictions. Implementation of planning modules as a part of "ERP Monolit" will provide quality improvement of forecasting and planning on all links of a logistics chain.

Solutions Monolit-Info in the field of process automation of planning are especially effective for the companies having several production sites with a possibility of alternatives on products production site, several distribution centers, the developed distributor network and network of suppliers with the known delivery conditions.

Circuit "Planning and scheduling" "ERP Monolit" includes the following functional units:

• Demand forecasting
• Sales planning
• Master planning
• Planning and management of distribution (DRP)
• MRP is operational planning of purchases
• Operational planning of production
• Operational planning of transport

Sales management

The efficiency of business processes of a sales cycle of the company directly depends on opportunities of an information system to model document flow, to automate the majority of routine functions by calculation and control, to provide the ergonomic interface for quick entry and data processing, to provide reports generation and primary forms and also to provide necessary analytical information.

Opportunities "ERP Monolit" for a cycle of sales management are:

• modeling of schemes of document flow of a sales cycle practically any complexity;
• automatic calculation and preserving in shipment documents of the selling prices, discounts and bonuses to buyers determined by conditions of relationship with the client;
• control of warehouse stocks and accounting of the movement of own equipment which is in lease or returnable container;
• accounting of settlement with partners and control of receivables on different processing stages of documents with a possibility of automatic blocking of shipment or the statement of orders;
• the ergonomic interface of input of documents (the request, the order and the delivery note) focused on the maximum speed of processing:
  • - quick search of positions of qualifiers on which the code is not known to the operator;
  • - use of the generalized positions when entering requests and orders of buyers;
  • - control of a possibility of the statement of products taking into account planned or actual balances in a warehouse at the time of input of a document line;

• formation of accounting entries;
• designer of output forms of primary documents of any form;
• the designer of reports for financial, analytical and tax accounting (including sales ledgers).

The circuit Sales management "ERP Monolit" includes the following functional units and service opportunities:

• Management of requests, orders and shipment of products
• Management of claims
• Management of the prices and discounts
• Calculation of retrobonuses
• Management of a turnover container
• Accounts receivable management, control of credit limits and balance of the buyer

"ERP Monolit" — the complete and scalable solution allowing to model means of a system real business processes of the enterprise practically of any complexity. At the same time for a cycle of sales management it is provided:

• calculation of selling prices for difficult algorithms — to the user is provided the flexible system of settings, rules of application and calculation of the different prices and discounts (including retrobonuses);
• automation observance of the regulations adopted at the enterprise at the expense of a complex system of access isolation of users and checks;
• accounting of the movement of goods and finished goods (quantitative, by analytical batches), a turnover container and money (control of settlement and receivables);
• automatic formation of required accounting entries.

The interface solutions implemented in a system are optimized under requirements real business of processes that allows users to enter quickly necessary information and to process electronic documents in a system.

Personnel management

The functions connected with solving of tasks of personnel management and development human the capital are concentrated in a system "the Monolith: Personnel" which can be delivered as as a part of "ERP Monolit" and it is independent, being integrated with IT solutions of third-party producers.

"Monolith: The personnel" represent an integrated environment for process automation of personnel records, a time recording, payroll, calculation of taxes and payroll contributions and also reporting in bodies of GNI and RPF. A system contains algorithms and templates for formation of all types of quarter and annual accounts on personnel. Systems capabilities allow to execute calculations within the single database and to build the reporting for different legal entities of holding or the isolated branches of the company.

Support of tasks of management of motivation of workers — a compensation packet, the Bonus payment system (sales agents, merchandisers), calculation of an annual bonus is implemented. Personnel development is connected with the solution of a number of the interconnected tasks among which there is a formation of a talent pool of the enterprise, career planning of employees, management of development.

A system contains rich functionality on personnel management, a time recording and payroll.

The feature set for management of motivation of workers by introduction of individual extra fee includes support of such tasks as:

• compensation packet;
• bonus payment system (sales agents, merchandisers);
• calculation of an annual bonus.

Support of programs and procedures of personnel training is implemented (including means of distance learning).

In a system is implemented support of a number of the interconnected tasks connected with personnel development, among which:

• formation of a talent pool of the enterprise;
• career planning of employees;
• management of development.

To system advantages "Monolith: Personnel" the following properties belong:

• integration — consolidation within a single system of the functions implemented by the staff of several departments;
• historicity — storage of all entered data and their use according to required date; authorization of the in-fed information — an opportunity at any moment to define — who when and how modified data in a system;
• separation of access and data security — implementation of the principle "to everyone — on requirements", ensuring protection against unauthorized access;
• openness and modularity of architecture — creation of a system in the form of the expanded feature set and procedures performed over the general database reflecting entities of the described data domain and the relation between them and also a possibility of export import of information using OLE and ODBC mechanisms;

Competitive advantages of a system "Monolith: Personnel":

• completeness of functionality in the field of organizational and personnel management and powerful computing systems capabilities "the Monolith: Personnel" (payroll in holdings where thousands of employees work);
• support of technologies of corporate management by personnel;
• support of uniform qualifiers;
• support of certification of personnel, employee development program and work with a talent pool, measures for motivation of work of employees;
• compliance of the given prepared output documents and account to requirements of the existing national legislation;
• a common information space which prevents duplication of data and excludes emergence of errors;
• ease of setup and adaptation of a system according to industry, organizational and production features of the enterprise;
• separation of access and data protection:
  • - from unauthorized access at the level of applications and server protection;
  • - at the level of the configured roles of users and the organization of access in strict accordance with their ex-officio full powers;
  • - authorization of actions of users;

• openness of a system for development and modification;
• the industrial database server, open data structure, the standardized access;
• existence of the work benches of application development allowing to develop quickly and effectively functionality of a system;
• successful experience of integration with different financial systems.

Customer relationship management

The functions connected with solving of tasks of customer relationship management are concentrated in the Monolith system: CRM intended for the organization and process management of mobile trade according to schemes of the preorder (Pre-selling) and exit trade (Van-selling), merchandising, accounting and hardware maintenance in the companies on production and distribution of mass market products (FMCG).

A system can be implemented as a component of the software package "ERP Monolith", or in the form of the independent solution, being integrated with IT solutions of third-party producers. It is possible to study the detailed description of a system according to the link.

Tools of the business analysis (BI)

Business analysis tools (business intelligence, BI) are intended for creation of uniform information and analytical space of the enterprise:

• centralization, consolidation and unification of processes of reporting,
• data management and ensuring quality of information,
• formations of the management reporting and information analysis,
• creations of a system of key indicators of activity (KPI),
• ensuring information and analytical support of different activities of the enterprise for quality improvement of the made decisions.

Principal components

Data warehouse

• Consolidation of data from different sources
• Cleaning and verification of data
• Data storage for wide historical intervals

Data marts

• Providing information (indicators, categories of the analysis, KPI) for solving of tasks of specific data domain (finance, logistics, production, purchases, sale, customer relations).
• Providing tools for calculation of necessary additional indicators.
• Aggregation and caching of data for fall forward of work of users with data.
• Access control of users to information.

Systems of a research of data (data mining)

• Search of patterns (clustering, creation of a decision tree). For example, creation of optimal selection for mailing.
• Forecasting of time series (demand forecasting on the basis of actual data about sales)
• Forecasting of target function. Calculation of probability of purchase for demographic data.

Management system for analytical data

Control functions by analytical data are grouped in the module "the Monolith: Avtooborabotka". Purpose of the module: process management of data loading in storage, data translations and data loadings in show-windows (cubes).

Functions

• Project management for data preparation in storage and data loadings in show-windows (cubes). The project describes structure of analytical objects, communication with sources (the table of storage), breakdown parameters on sections.
• Queue management of tasks for processing of objects.
• Priority control of processing of objects.
• Recording of processing.

Effect of implementation

• Data become "transparent". Users can with the minimum efforts receive detailing of summary indicators to the level of initial data.
• Creation of the general the system of indicators of activity of the company and uniform data source for their calculation, including a single system of the normative reference information ("A uniform look").
• Quality improvement of the made decisions for the account:
  • - Quality improvement of the data used for decision-making. Users obtain operational and reliable data.
  • - Reduction of time which is required on obtaining necessary information;
  • - Information analysis from the different points of view (on different categories of the analysis);
  • - Possibilities of increase in detailing of the bottlenecks given for search and points of growth;
  • - Providing data to the user in a convenient evident form, using diagrams and charts, conditional formatting, ifogramm.

• Cost reduction on administration of a system due to use of the general tools business of the analysis at all levels of enterprise management.

Electronic document management system (ECM)

The Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) is intended for the solution of a complex of the tasks connected with process automation:

• Processings and approvals of all document types within standard business processes of the company
• Supports of storage of electronic documents
• Supports of electronic archive of documents
• Organizations of exchange of electronic documents with partners
• Mailings of information on events

Total characteristics of EDMS

• Existence of two modes of work of users with a system (within the standard client application "ERP Monolith" or via the web interface)
• Integration into the modules ERP HRM, SCM
• For any document ERP means of the electronic document management (EDM) — storage of investments, control of execution of tasks, mailing, the personified access can be used
• ED storage allows to save and edit within documents of an investment of any types
• Multilingualism of the interface and data of a system; for all text boxes Unicode is supported
• Means of mailing of information on events (on the e-mail address)

Solution architecture

Features of a system is the opportunity for work as independent EDMS of a system or as EDMS functions within ERP. Use of the EDMS functions in the ERP system allows to construct the processes integrated business in which both data of ERP and the EDMS tools are involved. The example of such approach for the supplier contract – in a chain approval is used control of the budget and cycles of approval.

The scheme when ERP or HR systems delegate control functions business by processes of EDMS to a system is also possible. Examples of interaction of ERP (HR) and EDMS:

• The publication of certain documents (for example, orders or contracts in EDMS)
• Accomplishment of approval of ERP (HR) of documents in EDMS with return to ERP (HR) of result of approval

The EDMS system is developed taking into account the centralized scalable architecture and focused on use in large enterprises with the distributed organization structure.

Integration of EDMS of a system into e-mail and portal technologies allows to construct for different categories of users a working environment using the minimum set of applications.

Functional characteristics

• The address directory – is under construction based on the reference book by employees. An access control basis in EDMS
  • - Integration with local personnel management systems is provided
  • - The user groups are supported
  • - Dynamic groups

• Use of full-text search according to documents:
  • - According to investments using iFilter
  • - According to document "card"

• Issue of search results taking into account access rights
• Integration of EDMS with other systems is provided for a possibility of delegation in EDMS of control functions business by processes
  • - Local DB of the Goods turnover systems (centralization within CEE is not planned)
  • - Local personnel management systems
  • - Other local and centralized systems

• Standard tasks
  • - Approval of the document in EDMS
  • - The publication of the document in EDMS

• Technology of exchanges: a subsystem of packet exchange of XMLExchange, the transport layer — RemoteCall
• Separation of functions of administration between service IT and professional business users

System interface

General approaches:

• possibility of independent setup by the system administrator of screen forms of the web client
• opportunity for work from different types of devices (a desktop and mobile platforms)
• users can work as on the intra-company network, and from the outside

Characteristics of the web application:

• Modern design
• Modern approaches to usability
• Adaptivity under different devices
• Personalisation under the user's tasks

Electronic archive

The scan copies of originals of documents in electronic archive ERP systems allows to organize storage. At the same time following features are used:

• Marking of primary documents barcodes
• Package loading of primary documents in electronic archive
• Loading of the primary document in electronic archive, for postprocessing of the document by the accountant
• Management of physical placement of originals of documents
• Possibility of providing (printing) to the controlling instances of copies of documents by different options of requests from electronic archive

Exchange of documents between partners in electronic form using the EDS

The functionality allows to organize creation, signing of the EDS, storage and exchange with partners of primary documents in electronic form. At the same time documents in the structured type (xml), and in any unstructured format are supported.

Circuit adjustment of exchange according to requirements of different operators of electronic document management is supported.

Advantages of use of the EDMS Monolith

The current stage of development of ERP systems leads to the increasing intersection of "classical" ERP tasks and problems of electronic document management. At the same time the situation can develop in the companies on one of scenarios:

• Ignoring of problems of electronic document management and concentration of all efforts to ERP. Problems of ED of turnover are solved by the residual principle
• Parallel use of the ERP system and electronic document management system without means of integration between them. In this case, each of tasks will be solved insufficiently effectively, with the large volume of duplication of information and with several sources of information uncoordinated among themselves.

Thus, in modern conditions to the Companies the complete solution is required. And, so far as concerns business processes in the field of finance, logistics, sales (i.e. the processes relating, first of all, to maintaining ERP systems) the solution based on integrated solution of ERP-SED wins.

Architecture "ERP Monolit"

Features of architecture of the technology platform "ERP Monolit" as of May, 2016:

• "ERP Monolit" it is constructed on the basis of technologies of Microsoft, means of Win32 technology and elements of the Microsoft.NET platform are applied
• In the architecture "ERP Monolit" service - the focused approach at which the majority of system services is issued in the form of the services implementing a final set of functionality and connected among themselves by open interfaces is applied.
• As the data warehouse in a system the MS SQL Server is used. The current supported versions are the MS SQL Server 2005/2008/2012/2014. Data are stored both in relational (MS SQL Servers engine) and in multidimensional (MS Analysis Services) databases.
• The scalability "ERP Monolit" is provided with the special Monolit-SCALE platform which is implementing a possibility of parallel use of several database servers and including services of balancing of loading between system servers.
• In system architecture the special abstraction layer allowing to separate interfaces of the top level (for example, interfaces of the presentation of data) from structures of direct data storage and algorithms — is used that allows to execute their modification without the need for modification of the interfaces using them.
• Active use of metadata provides flexibility of system configuration and also allows system and applied administrators to get access to the main settings and algorithms of functioning of a system.
• The principle of creation of client part "ERP Monolit" allows to use it as in the local area network and far off — in the latter case traffic of the client "is wrapped" in the http-protocol and is transferred to special service of remote access which broadcasts the received requests for the internal services "ERP Monolit".
• The developed tools of the organization of jobs of users allowing to configure completely a working environment of users — including a set of available forms, algorithms; the built-in development tools allow to execute modification of existing or to create new screen forms.
• The subsystem of reports generation provides access to a broad set of the existing reports and also allows to create new. At the same time formatting of reports is performed by means of the MS Excel that allows to create difficult reports in Wednesday familiar to most of modern users.
• Access to a system can be provided from the mobile devices working in offline mode. Synchronization is executed using the service "ERP Monolit" supporting incremental data-refresh.
• Special service of the integration into external applications which is based on the SOAP protocol and the XML format using for data exchange is provided.
• Services of authentication and access control, reservation, management of work and monitoring of a system are provided.

The architecture "ERP Monolit" is presented in a general view on the following scheme:

2015

Functionality of support of the Unified State Automated Information System system

Project tasks were:

• The choice of the server architecture of interaction centralized "ERP Monolit" with decentralized Unified State Automated Information System production and Unified State Automated Information System wholesale
• Ensuring the integration "ERP Monolit" about Unified State Automated Information System production and Unified State Automated Information System wholesale
• Support of work with reference books of the Unified State Automated Information System
• Accomplishment of additional requirements of buyers
• Business process optimization, the mentioned projects; minimization of a negative impact of the Unified State Automated Information System on operating activities and work of users; minimization of the conflicts of requirements of the Unified State Automated Information System with requirements of accounting and tax accounting, electronic exchange of invoices, electronic exchange according to the EDI standard
• Creation of lot-based accounting of finished goods means "ERP Monolit" in coordination with the lot-based accounting which is conducted in the Unified State Automated Information System

The functions implemented within the project:

• the integration "ERP Monolit" about Unified State Automated Information System production;
• the integration "ERP Monolit" about Unified State Automated Information System wholesale;
• review and business process optimization in the field of warehouse and transport logistics of finished goods;
• lot-based accounting of finished goods on separate divisions;
• modification of exchanges of electronic invoices and exchanges according to the EDI standard;
• modification of formation of primary documents.

ERP Monolith 6.1

On March 3, 2015 the Monolit-Info company announced a release of the new version "ERP Monolith 6.1"^[1].

In addition to updating of the modules which are traditionally a part of ERP solutions in the version "ERP Monolith 6.1" functionality such a component as is significantly expanded:

• Built-in system of electronic document management (ECM),
• management system for physical assets of the enterprise (EAM),
• module of accounting and performance monitoring of marketing actions,
• the solution on control automation by stocks from the supplier (VMI),
• corporate portal for processing of personal information in a system "the Monolith: Personnel",
• module of operational planning of shipments,
• module Yard Management,

Separately It should be noted expansion of functionality of a CRM system a number of new modules:

• Optimization of territories — distribution of all set of outlets in the territory of sales representatives;
• Optimization of day routes — distribution of outlets of each sales representative by days of the week, taking into account the necessary frequency of visit of outlets;
• formation of an optimal day route of a detour of outlets.

At the system level the ERP Monolith 6.1 platform includes a number of important improvements.

The possibility of use of new technologies of the latest version of MS SQL SQL server 2014 is implemented, including:

• support up to 8 read-only of remarks in AlwaysOn — for scaling of requests for reading on several SQL servers,
• the support of in-memory OLTP technology (Hekaton) allowing to accelerate considerably system modules of which a large number in parallel of the executed transactions is characteristic.

Version 6.1 includes means of double-sided synchronization of data with geographically remote SQL servers on the basis of Service Broker technology.

Screenshot of the interface of the client, 2014

2014: ERP Monolith 6.0

On April 15, 2014 the Monolit-Info company announced an exit in December, 2013 of release of the new platform "ERP Monolith 6.0".

Description

The product is focused, substantially, on clients - participants of the market of FMCG (essential goods). According to developers, as a part of the updated product a number of essentially new modules, a large number of expansions of basic functionality contains.

In addition to updating of the modules which are traditionally a part of ERP solutions, the version "ERP Monolith 6.0" includes components:

• complex of means of electronic document management (ECM),
• management system for physical assets of the enterprise (EAM),
• module of accounting and performance monitoring of marketing actions,
• the solution on control automation by stocks from the supplier (VMI),
• corporate portal for processing of personal information in a system "the Monolith: Personnel",
• module of operational planning of shipments,
• module Yard Management,

At the system level the ERP 6.0 Monolith platform includes a number of important improvements.

The possibility of use of new technologies of the latest version of MS SQL SQL server 2014 is implemented:

• support up to 8 read-only of remarks in AlwaysOn — for scaling of requests for reading on several SQL servers,
• the support of in-memory OLTP technology (Hekaton) allowing to accelerate considerably system modules of which a large number in parallel of the executed transactions is characteristic.

Version 6.0 includes means of double-sided synchronization of data with geographically remote SQL servers on the basis of Service Broker technology.

Notes