Goal:
Realize core business informatization
China Grain Storage is a large state-owned enterprise approved by the State Council in May 2000. Entrusted by the State Council, China National Grain Storage Corporation is responsible for the operation and management of central grain reserves, which is an important carrier of national grain macro-control. At the same time, China Grain Storage, as one of the central enterprises supervised by SASAC, carries out business activities in accordance with the law under the macro-control and supervision of the state, operates independently and is responsible for its own profits and losses to ensure the preservation and appreciation of state-owned assets.
According to Chang, deputy director of the Information Department of China National Grain Storage Corporation, China National Grain Storage Corporation should accept the assessment of double standards, and first make social benefits to serve the stability of the domestic grain market and national food security; After economic benefits, participate in market competition and become bigger and stronger.
Central grain reserve is a strategic material for national macro-control, which is directly related to national food security. Grain purchasing and storage should ensure the real quantity, good quality and safe storage of central grain reserves, ensure that central grain reserves can be stored, managed, adjusted and used, and save costs. These "two guarantees" are the important premise and fundamental guarantee for the central grain reserves to play a macro-control role, and are also the basic requirements of the central government for China National Grain Storage Corporation. On the premise of obtaining certain subsidies from the central government, we should manage the central grain reserves in accordance with national requirements.
However, it is understood that the central financial subsidy standard is low, and it is difficult to develop grain storage if it is only subsidies. As one of the central enterprises supervised by SASAC, grain storage should, on the one hand, save the cost of grain storage by strengthening management; On the other hand, we should seize the market opportunity, earn a suitable price difference in grain rotation, and at the same time increase profits by using grain processing, trade and other businesses to achieve the purpose of maintaining and increasing the value of state-owned assets.
However, at the beginning of the establishment of China Grain Reserve, due to historical reasons, management methods were relatively backward, and there were still many problems in management. At that time, there were more than 6,543,800 grain storage points in China. The inventory data of more than 1000 warehouses uploaded to China National Grain Storage Corporation forms more than 10000 statistical reports, which will inevitably lead to false high quantity and poor quality, and these data can only be the last static data, so it is impossible to monitor each warehouse in real time.
Especially before the establishment of China National Grain Storage Corporation in May 2000, grain departments at all levels belonged to the management department of central grain reserves, but none of them took overall responsibility for the quality and quantity of central grain reserves. After the establishment of China National Grain Storage Corporation, it should take overall responsibility for the quality and quantity of central grain reserves and use new methods to strengthen control. Their first thought is to use information technology. At the same time, the leaders of the State Council and relevant state ministries and commissions attach great importance to the information construction of China National Grain Storage Corporation, pointing out that China National Grain Storage Corporation should take the lead in realizing computer management.
At the end of 2003, China Grain Storage proposed to build a business management information system, and put forward the main objectives of information construction: to see every business through the business management information system, including the time of entry and exit, grain type, quantity and quality; Monitor the daily management of each grain depot through the system; Standardize the business process of each grain depot through the system; Through this system, it will initially realize the informationization of the core business of central grain reserves, improve the supervision level of central grain reserves, and provide a strong guarantee for realizing "two guarantees".
Select:
Screening among more than 30 suppliers
At the same time, China Grain Storage began to contact more than 30 domestic system suppliers with experience in the grain industry and communicate with them one by one. After comprehensive evaluation, China Grain Storage chose 16 contractor who had the opportunity to bid.
Considering the particularity of the grain storage business, in March 2003, China Grain Storage signed an agreement with this 16 contractor to ensure that the last contractor would choose from this 16 contractor to let them know about the grain storage business. After gradually introducing the business of the head office, branches and warehouses to these developers and leading them to the warehouses directly under Sanhe for inspection, each supplier can visit the two warehouses directly under China Grain Storage.
Six months later, in September, 2003, China Grain Storage asked these 16 companies to come up with their own overall plans, which were graded by the head of the core business department of China Grain Storage Corporation.
At the same time, China Grain Storage also invited CCID Consulting Company, a well-known domestic consulting company, to consult the project. Experts from CCID Consulting conducted research on the business of grain storage and independently formed a plan. Then, together with experts from CCID Consulting, China Grain Reserve fully absorbed the advantages of the top five developers on the basis of CCID Consulting's scheme. Through these efforts, it is often said that "we have fully understood what kind of solutions we need". On this basis, China Grain Reserve decided to establish a comprehensive business management information system to realize the integration of logistics, capital flow and information flow, to promote management modernization by informationization, to effectively improve the management level and economic benefits of central grain reserves, and to achieve the fundamental goal of "two guarantees".
It is worth mentioning that considering that China Grain Storage is a relatively sensitive department, many data need to be kept confidential. From the beginning, China Grain Reserve did not consider applying mature ERP products provided by existing internationally renowned ERP suppliers, but developed according to its own management characteristics.
In February, 2004, with the help of a bidding company, China Grain Storage invited bids within a certain range. As a result, Inspur Group became the chief developer and integrator of China Grain Storage Management Information System in the first place, and Digital China Company became the subcontractor in the second place.
Development:
The Ideal and Reality of Dual Suppliers
Today, it seems incredible that a system is completed by two developers. However, the grain storage at that time had its special circumstances and considerations.
At that time, in addition to the direct warehouse, there were also entrusted warehouses and rented warehouses. The ownership of entrusted warehouses and rented warehouses does not belong to China National Grain Storage Corporation, and the management methods are also different. Considering that the overall workload of China Grain Storage Management Information System is too large, China Grain Storage hopes to share part of the workload with subcontractors.
Another reason for using Digital China as a subcontractor is that Digital China has rich experience in the grain industry. Although the overall evaluation of Inspur Group is good, its experience in the grain industry is not as good as that of Digital China. China Grain Storage also hopes that the two developers can learn from each other's strengths.
However, coordination is a problem for two powerful developers to do the same project. "It's hard to say who will listen to who." Cao Yongning of China Grain Storage Information Department said. Although China Grain Storage has decided that the two developers will develop the system on the basis of "three unifications" of unified technical architecture, unified data structure and unified project management, and realize the unification of system documents through document configuration management, the responsibilities of the two developers are clear, but there are still many things to be coordinated. For example, the two developers have different development progress and different development ideas, especially the data interface. In the first year of a project, nearly 60% of the energy is usually spent on coordination.
In order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, China Grain Storage also specially invited a supervision company to strengthen project management. The supervision company is responsible for hosting biweekly meetings or emergency meetings attended by both developers, which also plays a positive role in the coordination between the two developers. With the help of two developers to learn from each other to improve the quality of the system, after more than a year of hard running-in, it finally began to appear.
Implement:
10 More than 20,000 people trained.
In September, 2006, China National Grain Storage Corporation conducted a pilot project of business management information system in four branches in Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In the process of pilot implementation, China Grain Storage has continuously summed up its experience. After the implementation of the pilot, China Grain Storage held an on-site promotion meeting in Henan in March 2007.
China Grain Storage has 24 branches, 4 subsidiaries and 1 139 warehouses, covering almost all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions except Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The implementation difficulty can be imagined. In addition to the wide scope of implementation, the difficulties in the implementation of the grain storage management information system are as follows: First, although the management of each grain depot is basically the same, there are still many differences; Second, most employees in the grain depot don't know much about computers; Third, employees are used to manual operation mode, which is difficult to change; Fourthly, the system involves many people, and there are more than 20,000 operators who need training.
In sharp contrast, when the planning system was started in 2003, there were only five people in charge of this work in China Grain Storage Information Department, and now there are only 10 people. It seems almost impossible for this 10 person to train more than 20,000 users in a short time.
Chang said that before the implementation of grain storage, the difficulties of implementation have been fully considered, so full preparations have been made before the implementation. The China Grain Storage Information Department has formed a joint working group with developers and supervision companies to sort out the implementation and training ideas. In order to implement the system efficiently, China Grain Storage has formulated the principles of unified planning, unified deployment and unified implementation: unified solution for software and hardware deployment; Unified training and unified acceptance; Unified post-operation and maintenance.
Considering that some subordinate units of China Grain Storage have used some small auxiliary management systems in the past, China Grain Storage Information Department stipulates that such systems can continue to be used, but they cannot be newly developed on this basis; The original system does not allow new development, but follows the unified deployment of the Head Office.
Finally, China Grain Storage successfully completed this seemingly impossible task. Chang was able to accomplish this task, thanks to the good pilot work and relatively perfect planning in the early stage of China Grain Storage Company. First of all, China Grain Storage Company selected 20 warehouses with different properties in four branches as pilot implementation. The United Wave of Grain Storage and Digital China constantly sum up experience in the pilot implementation process, and make timely rectification after finding problems in the follow-up implementation process. After rectification, it is proved that there is no problem through testing before promotion. It is understood that grain storage will sum up experience every three or four months to six months.
Then, China Grain Storage will train all warehouses in stages and batches, and each warehouse will train all employees, and make detailed plans: First, train key employees, that is, train people in every important position; Then, the backbone staff should be trained in their own libraries and play a leading role in the application. In the training plan, the training plan details where to go and do what work every day, who is in charge, which meeting room to train in, what equipment is needed, etc. And the work can only be carried out after being audited by the branch, which greatly improves the efficiency of training.
Change:
Business adjustment brings challenges.
However, the system construction work is not smooth sailing. In 2006, China Grain Reserve made major adjustments to the management of grain reserves. China Grain Storage realizes unified loan and unified repayment management for local storage warehouses and rented warehouses: the grain collection funds are uniformly loaned to the Agricultural Development Bank by the direct warehouse of China Grain Storage, and the funds are uniformly managed. Previously, entrusted warehouses and rented warehouses could also borrow money from banks. In order to reduce the risk, it is stipulated that entrusted warehouses and rented warehouses will no longer apply for grain reserve loans from banks, and subordinate warehouses will lend money in a unified way. In this way, the supervision of storing grain on behalf of the warehouse and renting it has been strengthened. The original entrusted warehouse and rented warehouse have all been transformed into direct warehouse.
However, this has brought great challenges to the system construction that has been going on for some time. According to the original plan, the informatization of China Grain Storage is built towards the goal of data concentration, and the data of directly affiliated warehouses, entrusted warehouses and leased warehouses are directly summarized to the data center of China Grain Storage Headquarters through the network. After the system changes, the data of the direct warehouse will not be directly transmitted to the headquarters data center, but will be summarized to the direct warehouse first. The affiliated library is like a small data center, which collects the data of the affiliated library and the data of the affiliated library, and then transmits it to the headquarters data center. This brings great challenges to the software, data and network of grain storage. In particular, the original system of head office and direct warehouse was developed by Inspur Group, while the system of entrusted warehouse and rented warehouse was developed by Digital China. After the data interaction conditions change, the interface needs to be adjusted.
To this end, China Grain Storage Information Department has been coordinating two developers to adjust the system from June 2007 to March 2008. Despite the smooth transition of the system, both the China Grain Storage Information Department itself and the two developers have experienced arduous tests.
Effect:
In-depth inquiry of each business detail
At the end of September 2008, the grain storage business management system was successfully implemented and popularized. Among them, all the directly affiliated warehouses, the whole takeover warehouses and some directly affiliated warehouses with large storage scale have deployed the grain storage business management information system. The application of this system enables the central grain reserves to realize transparent centralized management vertically and horizontally, and realizes the synchronization of logistics, capital flow and information flow of the central grain reserves. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
First, the working mode is changed from manual operation to computer operation. At present, almost all the central grain reserve business within the scope of grain storage can be completed through this system.
Secondly, the system opens up the finance and business, and realizes the synchronization of logistics, capital flow and information flow of the directly affiliated warehouse and the integration of the upper and lower business operations of the head office, branches and warehouses.
Third, the branches of the head office can query every business in the storage point through the system, which greatly improves the ability and efficiency of business supervision. Through the business management system, China National Grain Storage Corporation can not only know the rotation, inventory, quality, price and variety of grain in all provinces of China, but also gain insight into the gross weight, tare weight, quality and inspection results of each warehousing, which provides important technical support for realizing the requirements of "two guarantees" for central grain reserves.
Fourthly, through the implementation and application of the system, grain storage has formed business norms. Chang said that in the process of system development and implementation, China Grain Storage has continuously improved and standardized business processes, standardized many business processes such as warehousing and warehousing, and solidified them through the system. In the past, due to the different business processes of various warehouses, it was often "you said yours, he said his." Now, the business processes of all warehouses have basically achieved the same goal, except that the warehouses are located in ports and other special circumstances allow special treatment. "Now, in the process of capacity expansion, when transferring the directly affiliated library, we can standardize the management of the directly affiliated library through the system in a very short time," said Cao Yongning.
Fifth, the management decision-making level of China National Grain Storage Corporation has been improved. The application of this system helps to form a unified database for grain storage, and the business data of all grass-roots units can be summarized to the headquarters through this system, which provides reference for management to strengthen business management.
It is worth mentioning that the grain storage business management information system is also an important part of the national Jinhong project. In July, 2008, China Grain Reserve Management Information Subsystem of Jinhong Project passed the preliminary acceptance by the expert review committee, becoming the first project among more than 20 contractors of Jinhong Project to complete the preliminary acceptance.
However, the informatization construction of grain storage business management has not slowed down. It is often pointed out that in the past three years, grain storage was mainly to standardize and solidify business processes, and in the next two or three years, grain storage will use business management information systems to optimize processes. By then, the management of grain storage will be further improved.