80% of sales orders are booked through mobile computing systems

One of the biggest and oldest cement producers in India,
Madras Cements is an aggressive user of technology. It has state of the art
manufacturing plants and the company's Portland cement is manufactured
through the five advanced production facilities spread over South India. The
cement capacity right now is 10 mn tons per annum. The company is the fifth
largest cement producer in the country. Madras Cements also serves peripheral
markets like Ready Mix Concrete and Dry Mortar products and also runs one of the
largest wind farms in the country. In an interview with VOICE&DATA, N
Varadarajan, senior GM, IT, Madras Cements shares the communications and the IT
backbone that powers the company. Excerpts

What are the key
challenges when it comes to creating a communications infrastructure?

The most important challenge that we face is related to information
security. We face the threats constantly-the daily barrage of spam mails,
zero-day malware attacks, not to mention the risks of malicious programs and
infected laptops coming and going behind our firewalls and intrusion prevention
systems. Addition of wireless networks complicates the situation further. If we
are too restrictive, we can ensure security, but users complain. Balancing
security and user satisfaction is the real issue here.

Another challenge is that we have to trust what vendors say about what they
offer. There is no independent, credible third party to vouch for the claims of
vendors. If vendors say they are giving 1 Mbps bandwidth, we have to trust him
and rely on his bandwidth chart. I have a feeling that vendors are not always
honest in this regard.

Can you suggest some best practices CIOs can adopt while putting in place
communications architecture?

Firstly, CIOs must develop, document, and communicate a well-structured
communications infrastructure policy to the concerned stakeholders. This will
bring in some amount of standardization in our work and also ensure top
management commitment to a great extent. Secondly, we should install the
security systems that have the ability to adapt to the ever changing environment
that we are facing. Moreover, there must be a program for spreading user
awareness of security issues and necessary training for the same.

Thirdly, we must conduct periodic self assessment of our communications
infrastructure and proactively take measures to ensure adherence to systems and
policies. Also, there is a need to value, protect, track and manage all
communication assets through a well-designed infrastructure management system.
Last, but not the least, CIOs must have a clear business continuity plan and DR
system.

How do you manage your connectivity requirements?

We are running Ramco's ERP application across five cement manufacturing
units, three cement grinding plants, and about forty marketing locations and
godowns. The ERP is centralized and all these locations are connected to our
primary data center at Chennai through a MPLS cloud.

To ensure trouble-free operations, we have a fall back MPLS circuit at all
our locations. This will come into operation automatically the moment the main
circuit fails. We have a condition in our contract with the service providers
that they in turn should not depend on each other so as to ensure that the fall
back line will definitely work in case of any problem with the main line. We
have systems to monitor our network assets 24x7 and take immediate action in
case of failures.

Uptime is very critical. Given that do you think vendor SLAs cover
downtime comprehensively?

At present, SLAs are of theoretical importance. Practically, vendors are
giving SLAs only for the first two layers and not for the last mile. Even if
they give, they dilute a lot at that layer. In my experience 80% of the problems
occur in the last mile like road cuts, modem failure due to lightening, power
supply problem, etc.

Another ploy is defining SLA based on billing cycle. Suppose the billing
cycle is three months and the MPLS line is down for forty hours due to some
problem. The uptime still work out to about 98%, but the trouble the company
faces during those forty hours is unimaginable. Hence, CIOs must be careful at
the contract stage itself.

How affordable has access to higher bandwidth connections become in the
last one year?

In the last one year, the tariff for MPLS, mobile and Internet has fallen
heavily. Also, there are more vendors than ever before offering a vast mix of
connectivity solutions. There are also various options for the last mile such as
WiMax, copper, CDMA, Fiber, VSAT, etc. These are all advantageous for
organizations, provided they are not already in long term tie-ups. In my
opinion, it is more advantageous if we go for yearly tie-ups to get the maximum
benefits of falling tariff regime.

To manage downtime what is the approach you suggest-a single communication
vendor or multiple vendors?

We would definitely prefer dual vendor model, one primary and the other
secondary with the secondary line 50% of bandwidth as that of primary line. We
would also insist that primary and secondary providers are not dependent on each
other. We are also researching the possibilities of using two different
technologies rather than two MPLS providers. For example, a MPLS circuit for
primary and EDGE based mobile connectivity as a fall back. If it proves to be
successful, this would cut down our connectivity costs by 40%.

Do you have any mobile apps deployed at Madras Cements?

Yes, we do. In addition to ERP, we are running some systems that are
interfacing with it, complementing and supplementing operations of the primary
ERP. One such system is 'enterprise mobile computing systems'. This system
allows mobile workforce such as sales personnels to access a range of corporate
services and information from anywhere, at anytime and it improves the
productivity of a mobile workforce by connecting them to corporate information
systems and by automating paper based processes. The examples of such
applications include mobile MIS, mobile approvals, cement order booking, and
customer information service, among others. About 200 people are using this
system and about 80% of sales orders are booked through it.

What are the technologies that you would be exploring in the ongoing year?

We will be exploring WAN acceleration for our DR center that we are setting
up. We will also take up research to replace the existing Windows based mobile
computing with Java based mobility solutions. We are adding new applications on
our existing infrastructure, so that more mobile applications are incorporated.

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in