Operational reporting in a disparate legacy environment

Company overview

Anglo Copper is a division of Anglo American plc (LSE: AAL.L) with turnover of over US$4 billion (2010). Its strategy is to find, acquire, develop and operate long life, low cost mines in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.

In Chile they have interests in six copper operations. These operations consist of the wholly-owned Los Bronces, El Soldado, Mantos Blancos and Mantoverde mines, the Chagres smelter and a 44% interest in the Collahuasi mine. The mines also produce associated by-products such as molybdenum and silver.

Anglo Copper has controlling interests in the Quellaveco and Michiquillay copper projects in Peru and a 50% interest in the Pebble project in Alaska.

Situation

Anglo Copper’s Chief Financial Officer, described the situation at the start of the project:

“At Anglo American Copper we recognised that we needed to make our financial processes and supporting IT infrastructure more effective. The issues we faced included: multiple off-book adjustments; core financial reports that were inefficiently produced using several applications and sources of data; an inconsistent chart of accounts; a systems landscape that had proliferated following historic mergers; and finally, an integration with the Anglo American PLC consolidation tool which was inefficient and relied heavily on manual processes. We engaged with Seismi and their partners to resolve these core issues.”

Eliminate "Off-book" adjustments

Defined a new process which ensured that all off-book adjustments were eradicated, thereby allowing key financial reports to be run, in real time, directly off the general ledger

Standardise Mappings

Centralise and standardise all business mappings in Oracle DRM, making them transparent and easy to change. Oracle Essbase was used during the modelling process to ensure users were given early access to key financial data to allow them to sign up to the new standards

Standardise Reports

Deliver a standardised reporting solution allowing reports to be specified centrally in Oracle DRM, and released to users overnight. This ensured that all operations were using exactly the same reports, calculated in an identical manner thereby allowing true comparison between operations

Decommission Legacy Applications

Identify and decommission applications and spreadsheets that were rendered obsolete by the new process

Data Integration

Implement efficient, automated interfaces between core financial EPM applications (Oracle Essbase, Hyperion Financial Management, Ventyx Ellipse and bespoke planning applications)

Solution

Oracle DRM was used to deliver a comprehensive change management and masterdata governance solution to ensure Anglo Copper had a robust backbone for their financial solutions. It enabled Anglo Copper to:

Eliminate "Off-book" adjustments: defined a new process which ensured that all off-book adjustments were eradicated, thereby allowing key financial reports to be run, in real time, directly off the general ledger.
Standardise Mappings: centralise and standardise all business mappings in Oracle DRM, making them transparent and easy to change. Oracle Essbase was used during the modelling process to ensure users were given early access to key financial data to allow them to sign up to the new standards.
Standardise Reports: deliver a standardised reporting solution allowing reports to be specified centrally in Oracle DRM, and released to users overnight. This ensured that all operations were using exactly the same reports, calculated in an identical manner thereby allowing true comparison between operations.
Decommission Legacy Applications: identify and decommission applications and spreadsheets that were rendered obsolete by the new process.
Data Integration: implement efficient, automated interfaces between core financial EPM applications (Oracle Essbase, Hyperion Financial Management, Ventyx Ellipse and bespoke planning applications).

Why Chose Seismi?

"Seismi and their partners brought a combination of business understanding, technical expertise and demonstrable industry experience. Over the last 6-months they have rapidly implemented a solution that has delivered a standardised reporting solution from a series of disparate systems and chart of accounts, implemented a strong governance process, whilst minimising the impact on end users allowing us to avoid an extensive change management programme. In addition, they have decommissioned unnecessary applications and removed off-book adjustments. Most importantly this solution is scalable and flexible.

The project has improved our financial processes by increasing the transparency and integrity of our data and maximising the control of our general ledger application. The solution has migrated all our key mappings into a logical model, which provides centralised control of all our key financial data. Our various general ledgers and budget applications can now feed data directly into our consolidation tool without manual intervention.

The reaction to Seismi and their partners’ new solution has been overwhelmingly positive. It has given the finance team the control we need over our reporting solutions, whilst the reports themselves provide accurate, reconcilable information to our management in a timely and effective manner. It is envisaged that significant management time previously spent reconciling systems will be saved as a result of the project. Its flexibility and scalability will allow us to adapt to initiatives that my finance team will face. The work performed by Seismi and their partner’s has been expertly managed and executed in all areas. We believe that the solution they have delivered is world-class."

Chief Financial Officer

“The work performed by Seismi and their partners has been expertly managed and executed in all areas. We believe that the solution they have delivered is world-class”

CFO