BASF IT in integration link with Aker Kvaerner

BASF IT Services (BIS) has joined forces with leading EPC contractor Aker Kvaerner to provide plant maintenance planning services to users of the SAP suite of enterprise resource planning software.

The alliance is driven by 'the need for process manufacturing companies to integrate plant data with management information to reduce maintenance costs and improve plant asset utilisation,' BIS says.

BIS has been independent from BASF since 2001, and offers a range of IT services both to clients both inside and outside the process sector. Working with Aker Kvaerner, it has developed SAP-PAS which integrates ERP with the PrimaVera project management software suite.

'This joint development combines Aker Kvaerner's skills in engineering services with the relevant IT technologies from BIS, thereby providing an integrated solution for the process industry,' says Uwe Krakau, md for sales and marketing. The agreement is worth e2.7million in its first stage, and 'several million Euros subsequently, says md for applications and infrastructure Wolfgang Erny.

BIS is aiming to be a major provider of IT for the process sector. Krakau explains that it is targeting what it terms the 'disconnect factor' in process-based firms, where communications break down between the various levels of the organisation - plants and management, for example, or between sales and procurement. 'In many companies, it leads to stereotyped thinking, where the right hand has no idea what the left is doing and vice-versa,' he says.

'Not everybody is aware of important information, with the result that decisions are often made, based on incomplete knowledge.' In a survey carried out by the company, Krakau says, engineering departments said their staff spent 20% of their working time trying to find the data needed to carry out their jobs. 'Thanks to our deep-seated knowledge, we are in a position where we can identify and remedy these gaps in the information flow,' he says.

'We focus on the process sector, because we have technical and process know-how,' says Erny. 'But given that know-how we can also address issues outside that industry.'

Its non-process clients include Mannheim-based Comparex Information Systems, for whom it operates a firewall and customer services centre; and paper cutting specialist Böwe Systec, which uses the company to host its SAP R/3 system.