Softline ACCPAC, AccTech Systems strengthen their presence in mining industry with Central African Gold

Implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is a difficult decision for any business. It's a major step that affects the entire enterprise with far-reaching impacts.

In spite of this, Central African Gold decided to implement an ACCPAC ERP for mining last June, convinced of its ability to provide them with a mining-specific ERP solution that would facilitate its operations from workflow to business intelligence.

In mining, the ability to obtain accurate production information from all areas, such as shafts, open pits, tailings or stocks, is as important as agile management of the workflow. It is an industry that requires constant monitoring and production control.

Central African Gold's previous solution deprived them of this critical control, as their IT infrastructure was unable to provide them with real-time reporting from the chain. "Efficient reporting ultimately affects profitability as it has immediate impact on pricing and enables quick adjustments in production volume," explains Jeremy Waterman, managing director of Softline ACCPAC.

The company's other critical need was to develop predictive asset management. Mining production relies on huge assets. This means asset costs are tracked from acquisition to disposal, together with a comprehensive history of each specific asset.

"Mining companies need to ascertain life cycle financial profitability for all equipment to ensure the overall productivity of the company and plan for future acquisitions," adds Waterman.

For both these reasons, Central African Gold decided to migrate to ACCPAC ERP for mining with premier Softline Accpac business partner, AccTech Systems. The decision was based on observation of Softline ACCPAC's similar experience with other mining companies and AccTech Systems' locally developed workflow solution.

"Our experience in the mining ERP industry gave Central African Gold confidence that AccTech Systems' proven architecture and training methodologies would provide for an easier transition from its dated solution to its new ERP System," says Tertius Zitzke, managing director of AccTech Systems.

After a training period of just two weeks, Central African Gold was already able to see significant results. "We didn't have to wait long to see the benefits of our new ERP solution. To start with, we now receive automatic reports giving us an accurate overview of production, costs and procurement, cutting the time we use to spend aggregating data," says Mark Rosslee, CFO, Financial and IT Director.

Training is essential when such a transition takes place as people have to adapt to new ways of working. Even if the ERP system actually speeds up operations, it may initially appear overwhelming. Waterman explains that training is aimed at quickly overcoming the challenge created by such a transition - which is where ACCPAC's previous mining experience gave them an additional competitive advantage.

"Our next goal is to extend the roll-out to the rest of our group, and then add a more specific business intelligence solution. Working with efficient software that does it all for you is addictive," concludes Rosslee.