Barnstone's team completed the implementation in three months, with the go-live performed in July 2012. "One of our big advantages was that we are a young company with a young and enthusiastic team, so we had little baggage in terms of legacy systems and processes," says Sicelo Sikakane, general manager of strategy and planning at AEMFC. "The attitude of the Barnstone team was another key success factor: they were behind us all the way and were totally flexible when it came to devising workarounds to accommodate specific business processes."
As part of the implementation, Barnstone undertook in-depth training at various levels for AEMFC's users, and developed user manuals to ensure complete transfer of intellectual capital.
"Provided we can obtain the right kind of mining rights, we aim to become one of the top five coal producers in the country by 2020," says Sikakane . "We see the implementation of the Barnstone Mining Solution as a key foundation stone in that strategy - it gives us, as a mid-sized mining house, access to the best practices embedded in SAP. This preconfigured solution puts us on par with the major players from day one at a fraction of the cost."
