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BHP BILLITON CASE STUDYBackground We recently designed and developed a Container Management procedure in Metastorm BPM for BHP Billiton, a major multinational resource organisation. Phase I of the project incorporated the design and build of a solution to capture and manage Shipment Requests (from SAP generated Orders), and included comprehensive Container Management, Land transportation and Shipping logistics functionality. The Problem BHP Billiton's logistics control system was designed and implemented to manage Shipment Requests, Container Management, Shipping Documentation Verification and Shipment Control Logistics Processing. The application was functionally diverse with numerous "touch points" but the development platform on which the solution had been built was inflexible making it difficult to change and streamline further. Managing both internal and external user response and escalation relied primarily on eMail triggers. The application also had an unintuitive user interface, limited scalability, and lacked robust audit trails and realtime status reporting functionality. The Challenge The ability to update Shipment Request details from the beginning to end of the process without affecting the overall process flow whilst incorporating the assignment, pickup, delivery, filling and shipping of Containers around the world with very tight security and compliance controls associated with customs, ports and shipping authorities required a robust database design as a starting point to address both flexibility and performance expectations across a diverse internal/external user group. The Solution Process Mapping embarked on a 'proof of concept' designing a new database schema (from the original non English metadata) whilst retaining the existing system's core functionality. Process Mapping's BPM development approach was based on modular design to streamline ongoing maintenance and future enhancements that would be required. The ability for users to see via To Do or Watch lists, the status of all Shipment Requests together will all related paperwork and shipping documentation including container photos and a detail audit trail will provide improved collaboration between diverse user groups. The final solution will integrate with BHP Billiton's SAP system through the 'Metastorm EPO Connector for SAP' (from EPO Consulting www.epoconsulting.com) with Metastorm BPM importing Shipment Request orders from SAP automatically and providing comprehensive Container Management and shipment logistics functionality. Some of the core Container management functionality implemented in Phase I includes the ability to move Containers that have an 'on hold' status between orders, provide a comprehensive audit trail and 'at a glace' access to documentation required by port authorities and shipping lines
Phase II of the project will include full integration with the organisation's SAP/GSAP implementation as well as information exchange through EDI to and from the various Shipping lines.
Process Mapping is an Australian company that has been providing Metastorm BPM consultancy and software development for over six years, and has been involved in many significant software projects primarily in Australia and the United States. Metastorm is the leading provider of business process management (BPM) software for automating, managing and controlling business processes. BHP Billiton is the world's largest diversified resources company. They are distinguished from other resources companies by their deep inventory of growth projects, their customer-focussed marketing, their diversification across countries, commodities and markets and their Petroleum business |
