Large, independent power producer, PPGC, leverages Ramco ERP

PPN Power Generating Company Pvt. Ltd., was promoted by the Apollo Hospitals Group, along with Marubeni Corporation (Japan). Currently, Apollo Infrastructure Projects Finance Company Private Limited owns 64.3% of the company’s shareholding. The company has power plants at Pillaiperumalnallur Village and Manickapangu Village, Nagapattinam District, Tamil Nadu.

Technology has been a key enabler for the company’s growth, given the scale of operations and the capital-intensive nature of the industry. PPGC identified its needs early on and began evaluating several ERP solution vendors. They wanted a solution that would help them deal with frequent breakdowns of critical assets; they also wanted to avoid paying high maintenance costs for capital-intensive assets. The answer lay in using technology that could enable effective control over costs and operational efficiencies, leading to the increased life of assets.

“In today’s scenario, the need is to be operationally efficient, but not compromise on cost-effectiveness. The best way to handle it is by implementing an ERP,” say sources from the company. “Since our plant works in a remote location, an ERP solution became necessary for smooth operation and efficient tracking and movement of materials, and for correlating purchase orders with the delivery and to ensure visibility on the same at head office.”

The requirement was to combine all the departments on a single platform, especially finance and operations. These were previously handled by independent systems, which meant the lack of automated and coordinated reports. PPGC’s personnel faced the cumbersome task of manually exchanging and retrieving information from the system, which affected their productivity. Further, the reliability of information obtained had to be manually monitored to avoid duplication of data from different departments that were operating on different sources for different sets of information.

The company found its panacea in Ramco’s integrated solution for the power industry. In fact, Ramco and PPGC realized the solution together. “Ramco had the requisite IT knowledge and expertise, while PPGC had a working knowledge of the power sector and its unique challenges,” says a company source. “The fact that we chose Ramco way back in 1999 demonstrates the pioneering effort of Ramco when the private power generation in the country was at its nascent stage. The solution integrated financial accounting and operations under one package. The highlight however was the solution’s ability to view the operational parameters of our plant at our corporate desk in real-time by integrating Ramco’s ERP with the DCS control system.”

Having used the solution for over a decade, the following are some of the benefits that PPGC has attained:

• Real-time visibility of Key Performance Indices (KPIs) and effective control over O&M costs
• Efficient maintenance planning of assets with operations data leads to high Plant Availability Factor, Plant Load Factor, lower aux power consumption, etc.
• Effective financial planning and budgeting–lower Cost of Capital (COC).
• Improved productivity of employees – higher learning curve
• Technology-driven solutions at optimal costs – lower TCO.
• On-time surveillance of assets, ensuring compliance with regulatory needs.

Thanks to its foresight in choosing the right solution a long while ago, PPGC's future expansion plans can be handled simply by scaling up. Overall, Ramco’s solution met the company’s requirements at an optimal cost and was implemented in just a year’s time. Company sources say, “Ramco’s service, implementation, and support go beyond the terms of the agreement-in-writing. The approach has been as though we are partners in business. The Ramco product has evolved over the last decade and Ramco’s continued support ensures zero downtime and stability to our operations in the long run.”

Today, PPGC’s experience with Ramco has spread over a decade and the companies continue to cherish their valued relationship with each other. Truly, Ramco and PPGC’s tryst has been a control room to board room story!