Marina Yemelianova, a financial director, comments,
‘We remained satisfied with the way the inventory and logistic control is organized in 1C:Enterprise 8. Having automated these spheres, the publisher managed to save much money, estimated at millions of rubles. We have reduced time of the night (the highest-paid) shift of warehouse staff as well as payments for overtime.’
1C-Rarus completed the project of complex automation at the publishing company ‘Eksmo’. Our specialists created a corporate information system (CIS) that covers the parent and 8 regional offices of the publisher. The CIS is based on 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management 8, 1C:Consolidation 8 and program and methodical complex 1C-Rarus:Process Management. As a result of the implementation, a quantity of automated workplaces has been increased; methodological ground for planning of production resources has been improved; cross-cutting business processes between Eksmo’s subdivisions have been reflected in the ERP system; real-time and accounting data have been consolidated in the unified information base. Currently, over 1,000 users are registered in the information system.
Today Eksmo is a publishing office #1 in Russia. The company occupies 20% of the Russian publishing market and possesses the largest author’s portfolio in Russia that consists of 8,000 names. Eksmo is a leader in terms of issued books circulation according to the data of the Russian Central Institute of Bibliography, a leading publisher on the market of fiction, light fiction, applied and children’s literature.
The publishing company has a well-developed distribution network that includes 8 regional centers. The special attention is paid to the time needed for a new product to appear in a store – it usually takes only two-five days after book publishing.
Previously, EKSMO used the 1C software to organize work of the distribution department successfully. However, the production has been automated by means of the prominent western system. The use of different systems made work at the warehouse difficult and required additional settings.
Marina Yemelianova, a financial director, reports,
‘The previously used western ERP system at EKSMO did not satisfy the publisher: updating and development of the system taking into account changes inside the company and in the external business environment required heavy spending of both time and money. Preparation of necessary documents while distributing books to regional centers and end users took much time. The warehouse staff had to work in 4 shifts and order delivery was delayed for several hours.’
Data exchange was obstructed. It led to disagreements between departments and had a negative impact on the business efficiency.
Choosing a new information system, Eksmo’s IT Management determined several important criteria.
Iliya Kashparov, a director of Business Administration, comments,
‘We looked for an information system that could provide us with not only the close integration of business processes with information flows between the departments and company’s business units but with the high speed of changes, required by the business activity, with less labour costs. The publishing company was in need of the modern ERP system that could efficiently react to any business changes in terms of implementation of the new functionality. We planned to use the system in the tight integration with the web-portal on the 1C-Bitrix platform to organize paper flow at the company and any other processes to ensure the best service and convenience of work for both Eksmo’s clients and employees.’
The flexible and steady 1C:Enterprise 8.2 was chosen as the platform for the new information system. It makes possible to respond more efficiently to any changes and to provide high quality support with less staff. The Contractor to the project was 1C-Rarus having unique experience in automation of large Russian enterprises.
To realize the standard functionality the following configurations have been used. They are 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management 8 and 1C:Consolidation 2.0, as well as the program and methodical complex 1C-Rarus:Process Management.
1C-Rarus’ experts have developed and implemented the subsystem of data management for the editorial and production block. They have created workplaces for editors, artists, technologists, planners, supply agents, accountants for printing services and budgetary inspectors. Previously artists had to work in separate systems, receive and submit performed tasks using additional programs. Today each artist is included into the unified information system. E.g. requests for the art work received from the editorial board are performed without any extra working costs according to their progress status and are provided with the quality inspection points being tied to the documentation under KPI. The scheme was designed in accordance with the capability of artists’ remote workplaces.
The subsystem that allows you to manage the editorial and production unit has been created. It contains full information about books: starting from ideas and ending with technical characteristics of its publishing and versions of its cover design. Clients can receive the maximum information about the publication with one mouth click. This made possible to speed up the process of book preparation and publishing.
Based on 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management, the developed system of operational production planning, makes possible:
- To determine technical parameters of production;
- To plan requirements in material resources to supply production processes according to the plans of the editorial board;
- To calculate planned prime cost and compare it with actual data, managing the production budget effectively.
Due to the difficulty and high cost of the process to upgrade calculation formulas for the planned prime cost of a book in the previous system, the publisher had to use simplified formulas, developed 3 years ago. Using the old information system, the miscalculation was about 10-15%. 1C:Enterprise 8 helped to optimize technologists’ work while determining technological parameters of printing production. Today miscalculation has been reduced. Now it is bout 3-5%. In the nearest future, because of the automation of imposing on the printing equipment, the miscalculation plans to be reduced to 0-1%.
The supply department’ staff had to calculate manually how much material was used to the release of any publication, to correlate expenses with the amount of supplies. As a result of re-automation of such processes on the new 1C:Enterprise 8.2 platform and reduction of the manual labour, the operating speed of procurement specialists has been increased.
Mutual payments with copyright holders have been automated. 1C:Enterpsie 8 helped to organize management of agreements and copyright objects, calculate and account compensations. The publisher has received an opportunity to calculate author’s compensation using different techniques: depending on both the production and sales volume.
With the high response speed of 1C:Consolidation, document preparation while distributing books has been accelerated. The staff of the trading house works in three shifts now, delivering orders promptly, waiting time for representatives of distribution centers and clients has been reduces.
The following departments operate in the new ERP system: Editorial Offices, Department of Production and Supply, a Trading House, an Art Management Department, Preprint Preparation Department, Electronic Copyright Department, International Copyright Department, Economic Planning Department, Financial Department, Account Department, and Legal Department. Over 1,000 users are registered in the information base, and the number of current connections is over 400.
With the implementation of 1C:Enterprise 8, the publishing office ‘EKSMO’ can respond to all changes in business and legislation faster. Previously, the reaction time required to change the system took over 30 days. Today adaptation in terms of new requirements takes only 1-2 days.
Marina Yemelianova says,
‘Expansion of the standard functional in 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management with the focus on the optimization of the publisher’s operating activity made possible to automate accounting of goods and materials, movement of funds and to keep a record of expenses, cost, financial and tax accounting.
Using the 1C:Consolidation software, we managed to solve tasks on budgeting. The program and methodical complex 1C-Rarus:Process Management helped to build a continuous chain of collaboration between our departments and to design a useful management model of changes in the production plan and paper flow.
Such projects usually take 1,5 or 2 years in total. But we had a task to implement 1C:Enterprise in 7 month because of the seasonality of our sales activity. We have successfully met these challenges because of the fruitful collaboration of our specialists from the Department of Business Administration and 1C-Rarus’ experts. In two month after the project launch, our editors began to use the software. In 4 month more, the production was brought into operation. The sixth month was marked with the complete stop of work in the old information system.
As a result of the project, the publisher received a reliable flexible and efficient tool that makes possible to optimize business processes and develop schemes of internal work at the enterprise in detail, clarifying roles for each process in the overall picture and its influence on the final result. The system we received at our disposal runs properly, has low total cost of ownership, a simple service model of Direction on Business Administration and at the same time helps us to provide higher quality support for business clients.
We remained satisfied with the way the inventory and logistic control is organized in 1C:Enterprise 8. Because of the automation of these spheres the publisher managed to save much money, estimated at millions of rubles. We have reduced time of the night (the highest-paid) shift of warehouse workers as well as payments for overtime.
Automated calculation of actual printing costs in the new system made possible to accelerate this process in several times: work that previously took three days is performed in half and hour.
With the implemented ‘Treasury’ subsystem based on 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management 8, the company’s TOP-managers regularly receive reliable and transparent reporting on the company’s financial state.
As a whole after project’s implementation, we would like to note that the quality of 1C:Enterprise 8 corresponds to the level of foreign systems, and at the same time the system has more friendly interface. This fact together with the economic benefit of its implementation makes Russian developments the most attractive ones among those represented on the market.’
