Metinvest Digital, the IT expertise center of the largest Ukrainian mining and metallurgical holding Metinvest, has implemented SAP in Metinvest-Shipping, the logistics division of the Metinvest group.

According to the company's press release on Thursday, Metinvest now has one of the largest and most complex SAP landscapes not only in Ukraine, but also in Central and Eastern Europe.

It is specified that SAP was introduced to organize the most convenient platform that integrates the business processes of Metinvest-Shipping with the assets using its services into a single SAP landscape. The goal of the project is to create an end-to-end chain of automation and control of logistics services in the group. Today, some 16 Metinvest enterprises keep records in SAP.

Metinvest Digital has certain corporate templates that could be adapted and quickly implemented in Metinvest-Shipping. However, this company is different from Metinvest's enterprises that produce metal or ore. Specialists have developed a unique solution for the group's logistics asset, according to the press release.

In addition, it is explained that Metinvest-Shipping is a company with a wide range of services. It serves railway and road transport, provides sea and river agent services, brokerage and inspection services. The company's business model provides for the provision of services both in its own and leased fleet, as well as the purchase of logistics services in the market on behalf of clients.

An additional challenge was the integration of the accompanying tender platform for the purchase of auto services and the proposal of a solution for integrating the data of the information dispatch service software complex, which is used by Metinvest's production assets.

The press service said it was impossible to apply either template or ready-made solutions to such services. It took the developers much longer to learn similar design processes for solutions in the industry, since initially a project of this level of complexity did not exist on the market.

Of the entire project, about half of the solutions were corporate, and the rest were either thoroughly adapted to the needs and features of Metinvest-Shipping, or completely developed from scratch.

The key challenge for specialists was the unique development of a system that should take into account a wide range of services and a developed business model, which will allow you to manage your own and rented vehicles for logistics services, ensure the sale and purchase of Metinvest-Shipping services in Ukraine and abroad, as well as provide services to their departments.

Before the war, about a hundred performers worked on the project, two thirds of which were employees of Metinvest Digital, and the rest were hired employees. Since the beginning of the war, the company has severed all relations with Russian and Belarusian contractors. Metinvest Digital also refused the services of Ukrainian contractors and redistributed resources among its employees in order to optimize the financial burden. These resources were much less than required, but the company's specialists managed to adopt all the work of the contractors, completely reschedule the work on the project and complete all the work with internal expertise.

The work of the Metinvest Digital and Metinvest-Shipping project participants at the development and integration testing stages was complicated by active hostilities in the cities of presence, blackouts and the Internet.

As a result, the Metinvest Digital developers have created an up-to-date and fully harmonized data accounting for Metinvest-Shipping in terms of corporate reporting. The project provided the basis for many vectors of its development – integration with service consumers, as well as financial services of buyers of foreign assets.

Over time, the company plans to refine the solution. First, to automate the process of purchasing services from Metinvest-Shipping by any enterprises of the Metinvest group. Secondly, to create an automated workplace of a forwarder so that he can work both in Ukrainian and foreign ports.

"Unfortunately, the war has changed the logistics chains of Metinvest-Shipping. But since Metinvest Digital developed the solution from scratch, it already knows how it can be integrated into the material accounting of foreign enterprises. Under the conditions of the war, Metinvest Digital took on additional training and support in order to be able to support the customer. The company's specialists took part in the development of new business processes and the coordination with other assets of the new system and terms of cooperation with Metinvest-Shipping," according to the press release.

Metinvest Digital is a Ukrainian IT company specializing in the digital transformation of large businesses and implementing projects in Ukraine, Europe and North America.