OREANDA-NEWS. On July 02, 2007 OOO Yamburggazdobycha (the world’s biggest gas producer), IBS (the leader in the Russian IT and consulting market) and SAP CIS (the world’s leading vendor of business management software) completed the project of migrating the information and management system of OOO Yamburggazdobycha to SAP ERP 2005, the new version of the ERP system, reported the press-centre of IBS.

Migration to the new SAP software version was necessary to enable projects of implementing modules using brand new functional capabilities available only in SAP ERP 2005;

to improve performance and operating efficiency of the company’s support units;

due to the expiry of the support period of previously used SAP solutions on January 01, 2007;

to enhance management efficiency;

to support OOO Yamburggazdobycha operations with the most advanced information technologies.

The project was performed by a team composed of OOO Yamburggazdobycha employees, consultants of IBS (the general contractor for development of the information and management system of OOO Yamburggazdobycha) and SAP CIS professionals representing the software vendor.

The project required migration of all settings and software developed for the previous SAP version to the new version, retaining all of the system functionality and without disturbing any users. The migration project had the added challenge of coinciding with system re-configuration to bring compliance with new cost accounting guidelines of OAO Gazprom and implementation of two new modules (Real Estate Management (RE-FX) and Funds Management (FI-FM)).

Thus, a large-scale re-configuration relative to gas production cost calculation in the system and configuration of two new implemented modules, which rely on the benefits of the new software version, were carried out during two months in 2007 alongside the migration.
The SAP software version upgrade comprised five phases:

Assessment of labor input required for the software version upgrade (June-July 2006);

Producing and agreeing the migration schedule (August-September 2006);

Pre-testing and further development of the system on pre-testing servers (October 2006 – February 2007);

Oracle DBMS version upgrade on productive system servers (December 2006);

SAP software version upgrade on productive system servers (March 2007).

The project was a success in large part due to efficient cooperation within the combined project team and the migration methodology produced by IBS specially for this project and including full functional and integration testing of the system among key migration phases. Most of the migration work was done by OOO Yamburggazdobycha and IBS staff. System settings in the new version were tested during test closures of two reporting periods.

The migration project was a move towards further functionality expansion of the information and management system of OOO Yamburggazdobycha. Following the migration, the OOO Yamburggazdobycha and IBS project team was able to proceed with the phase of settings implementation and integration testing in the real estate management and funds management systems implementation projects. Plans include expanding the corporate reporting solution, designing budgeting, plant maintenance and key performance indicator systems, designing automated workplaces based on those systems for the company’s management, and implementing a HR management and payroll solution.

Georgy Nafanailidi, Head of the Information Technologies Department, OOO Yamburggazdobycha, said: “Together with IBS and SAP we were able to carry out quite a complicated project with implementation of two modules and re-configuration of accounting processes carried out alongside the migration. Even a minor fault in the system, which has 700 users, could have had a negative impact on operations of the company as a whole. Nevertheless, the project was completed without disturbing any users”.