Mondi: More flexible and faster system

One of the objectives of Mondi Packaging Paper Štětí, a.s. is a continuous increase of the market share in the area of high quality packaging papers, which would protect to the maximum possible extent and represent products of final customers. To meet this target we require a quality and considerably automated and transparent system of planning and control enabling an immediate reflection of changes in our following business.

Company characteristics

Mondi Group is a subsidiary of Anglo American operating in tens of countries all over the world. Mondi Packaging Paper Štětí, a.s. is the largest manufacturer in the field of paper and carton industries in the Czech Republic. Our turnover has grown on an inter-annual basis and has reached a value of more than EURO 260 millions today. The key products are bleached cellulose and packaging paper.

Prior to BNS installation

The methodology of planning, reports and analyses had been in our company at a high level even prior to the installation of the Business Navigation System (“BNS”) in 2006. Development of more plan versions for various areas of monitoring costs had been however very demanding in MS Excel environment. Each and any modification, whether that of a number or monitored data, had to be rather reflected to more than tens of files and they then affected more and more calculations or items structures. Control of the access rights did appear to be a considerable problem too.

After BNS installation

Newly created modules in BNS environment covered the needs of monitoring and planning raw materials, energy or chemicals and their impacts on the company business performance. Planning in the system is developed from a number of finished products, i.e. various types of paper. There are determined the consumption standards by means of which the quantity of semi-finished products, namely, the cellulose is calculated, as well as the variable costs. They are moreover split into separate modules ensuring the plan of procurement of timber, energy, chemicals and other input raw materials. This is by far not yet the end of the story. Variable costs further enter the business performance plan comprising both the financial and sales parts on the basis of which the P & L Statement (Profit and Loss Statement) is stated. BNS however enables other and very specific functions. In addition to the standard illustration panels, it also provides various variation analyses, contingency tables, as well as Ebit Bridge, which absolutely clearly illustrates how the differences of sale and items of variable costs, foreign exchange rates or fixed costs affect the actual business results when compared with its originally expected value.

What was the decisive point

Experiences with the complicated planning in Excel environment brought our controllers to a considerable level of scepticism relating to any management system and therefore including even BNS at the beginning.
Presentation of the prototype directed at the area of variable costs however changed their opinion and they became convinced that it was just BNS which was capable of getting rid of the deficiencies accompanying the existing applications built on Excel platform with semi-automatic exports from SAP/R3 (with this operation system being connective with BNS in full).

Implementation procedure

At the beginning of the project implementation the joint team of Inekon Systems and Mondi Packaging specialists created the Navigation Concept which furthered the key planning and analytical steps of the company decision making. The next step consisted in interconnection of SAP/R3 system with the data store on SQL Server platform and creation of individual modules in BNS environment, which assured the monitoring and planning of raw materials, energy or chemicals so that their impact on the company business results is obvious. The other step enabled an automatic updating of the structures of BNS dimensions upon changing assemblies in SAP, e.g. in the areas of products, accounts, etc. Changes are now moreover immediately reflected in the information on the resulting variations within the full range of functional areas. BNS has also assured the required control of access and its locking for the approved plan versions.

Results:

• By means of BNS installation Mondi Packaging has acquired a stable system capable of the consistent, correct and uniform concentration of data for the purpose of evaluation of business results.
  
• Thanks to the standardized and clear navigation the company standards applicable to planning and controlling have been strengthened.
  
• The planning cycle has been significantly shortened in all its aspects, i.e. from the time of beginning of the creation of various versions up to that of approval of the plan in particular or from the time when the change took place up to that of its reflection in all the associated parts of the plan.
  
• The creation proper of several different plan versions (reference plan, optimistic variant, etc.), as well as their continuous updating, have been simplified.

Ing. Roman Senecký, financial director

„I have been very much satisfied with the delivered work and I already foresee the possibility of an additional development of the system of economic management of our company. BNS has advanced us to the starting line of a new race for perfection. According to my opinion we won the previous one in Excel environment. I am convinced that we have found a strong partner in Inekon Systems for implementation of the innovation controlling solutions in the future.“