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Information Technology @ ICI
A Concise Report
Course Faculty: Dr. Parag Sanghani
Curriculum: Management Information System
School of Petroleum Management (SPM)
Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU)
Course: 15-Months (full-time) Exe-MBA-10
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das (Exe-MBA-10 / SPM@PDPU)
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
Introduction: ICI is a major paint, adhesive and speciality products business with products and
ingredients developed for a wide range of markets. ICI has presence in Asia
Pacific, Europe and Americas.
ICI Paints, headquartered in UK and manufacturing in 24 countries, has some of
the world’s top paints and decorative product brands.
ICI India manufactures and markets paints, speciality chemicals, adhesives and
starch. With employee strength of about 900, ICI India’s manufacturing sites,
business and sales offices and distribution network span the length and breadth of
the country.
ICI India Ltd; a 100% owned subsidiary of ICI Plc UK is in the business of
manufacturing of speciality chemicals and decorative paints. I have worked there
for 5years in operations for manufacturing of decorative paints. This report gives
you an insight about the need for Information Technology in a manufacturing
shopfloor and the usefulness of IT in connecting with the customer.
Leveraging IT in Warehouse:
A paint manufacturing process involves several types of raw materials, like
pigments, extenders, binders and stabilizers. To manage such a wide spread of
inventory, manual operations are cumbersome. IT plays a significant role in
warehouse management and promotes the concepts like lean management, just-
in-time and zero defects. The inventory management was controlled by ERP
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
packages like BPCS (Business Planning and Control Systems) where raw
material purchase orders were generated and inventory was registered. This
helped in tracking the real time status of the raw material and any shortages were
promptly captured and reported. Thus use of IT systems lead to lower downtimes
and increased operational efficiencies. Also the system of coding raw materials
with ERP codes was helpful in identification as they had very complex chemical
names.
Leveraging IT in Manufacturing:
IT also helped in the process aspect of manufacturing where paint recipes were
fed into the system which controlled the batch time for each paint batch. This
helped in maintaining high quality standards which would otherwise have been
impossible with the manual operations. The use of IT in manufacturing would
enable paint batches to achieve desired specifications after the very first cycle, a
term known as RFT (Right First Time). This would reduce operational
redundancies and help in optimising more number of batches per shift, thus
achieving higher production targets.
Leveraging IT in Quality Management:
The next target for IT was the filling and packing units where paint cans were
filled and packed using computer controlled machines. Not only were these
machines faster and more efficient than the human interface but also the accuracy
levels of filling were significantly improved. The errors per million cans filled were
less than 1%, thus achieving KIAZEN benchmarks. This would ensure that the
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
cost of reprocessing of wrongly filled cans was minimized and the efficiency levels
in manufacturing rose significantly. The computer controlled manufacturing
process also ensured that all process steps were followed and left no scope for
human error in operations.
Leveraging IT in Distribution:
The manufacturing and distribution network was linked to the raw material
warehouse through ERP; hence the coordination between availability of raw
material, manufacturing capability, and demand from depots did not carry a
latency period. Real time data regarding the inventory of finished product was
available to the purchase department who could negotiate the best deal with the
raw material vendors and this in turn would add a lot of value to the product line.
Leveraging IT in Customer interface:
Paint is an aspirational product. The customer demands various colour shades
for painting his/ her house. Computerised colour vending machines have made it
possible for paint vendors to deliver the exact shades of paint by mixing the right
amount of pigments in the paint cans. This would also ensure in minimising
handling losses for pigments which are very costly. The company website should
represent a palette of colours and offer customers a rich experience in choosing
the right shade. Paint company websites today boast of online colour selectors
were a virtual home is created whose walls can be digitally coloured to get a real
life impression of the paint. This would improve customer satisfaction and help in
retaining customer loyalty.
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
The website (www.dulux.in) is full with colours and information about its product
range and home décor solutions. It also educates the customer regarding the
process of painting and tries to connect with the young customer base through
facebook-links (fanbox).
The website also promotes its CSR objectives on its website. This proves that IT
can be leveraged to promote all business functions across domains.
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
Post 2008; ICI India was taken over by Akzonobel Group (www.akzonobel.com), but
the brand Dulux was retained.
In 2009-10; Akzonobel (ICI) switched over its ERP system from dos based
BPCS to the more advanced SAP. This would help the organization grow laterally
in the future without having to worry about its IT capabilities.
Although the website does not handle e-commerce applications, a simple
privacy policy is displayed alerting visitors about cookies tracking the IP
address of the visitor.
Prepared by: Abhik Tushar Das Comments on: [email protected]
Conclusions:
It is thus a well established fact that all businesses across domains are
leveraging their IT capabilities in building capabilities. Akzonobel (ICI) after
successful implementation of its SAP package is all set to challenge the
dominant players in the highly competitive paint market in terms of cost benefits
in Supply-chain Management as well as increasing quality and efficiency of
Manufacturing Systems.
References:
www.dulux.in
www.akzonobel.com/paints
www.en.wikipedia.com
Literature collected in due course of employment at ICI Paints.
