Making the Steel Giant More Efficient: 600+ Digitization Opportunities
Business analysis
Vitkovice Steel is looking for a way to digitize its workflows to become resilient to unpredictable changes and increase efficiency as well as employee satisfaction. Together we have developed Digital Transformation Strategythat identified process automation opportunities and created a roadmap for subsequent projects.
The organization was in the preparatory phase and was looking for a contractor to propose Steps needed for digital transformation and helped with the selection of technologies.
The need to align goals, requirements and expectations
Vítkovice Steel's main objectives were Digitization of workflows for different departments and types of documents. At the same time it was important observances legal, accounting, certification and safety standards.
Trouble
divergent perception of the concept of digitalization
pressure to streamline operations
vaguely defined project objectives
fragmentation Previous attempts at digitization
Key requirements
Processing different types of PDF, Word, Excel and images with version settings, approvals and access rights
OCR or scanning and assigning barcodes
Integration of digital signatures, timestamps, encryption and synchronization
Platform-independent solutions for end users
APIs for integration with other systems (e.g. IFS ERP).
Preference for on-premise solutions with hardware delivery or cloud solution
Solution for backup and recovery using internal systems
Incongruous projects
Earlier efforts to digitize led to diverse projects that had local successes. Therefore, they were looking for a comprehensive solution that would link the efforts made as much as possible and create synergy.
“Our goal is not to digitize to reduce staff, but to make processes more efficient and our people can work on tasks with higher added value. “
— Katerina Nogolov Member of the Board, Vítkovice Steel
7-month iterative course
We have proposed a procedure for defining a digital strategy through departmental analysis.
38 Workshops to Define Processes
We created series interactive workshops. The intention of each of them was reveal specifics of the given department and at the same time find Leadership opportunities across the organization.
Common cooperative approach:
Enables you to engage end-users with the greatest insight into processes
visualizes the complexity of processes and their prioritization
contributes to team consistency over the goals and impacts of automation
increases the likelihood of accepting changes to the project (and thus its success)
In addition to defining processes, these workshops also Pointed out other opportunities — emphasised, for example, the importance of strengthening internal communication for planned changes.
17 departments were analyzed
They listened we are the individual members of selected departments that ensure the entire process of purchase, production, dispatch, quality and complaints. They engaged:
Quality Management
Controlling
Planning
Logistics
Commerce
Accounting Office
procurement
juridical
IT
and more...
We looked for connections where there are Barriers and silos Preventing faster communication.
“The workshops were important for getting information from real users who could express their everyday problems. This collaborative approach helped pinpoint real needs more accurately and led to better understanding across teams. “
— Pavel Vraj Business Analyst, INFOMATIC
Over 600 opportunities found
Comprehensive examination across the entire organization revealed potential automation possibilities that will bring significant savings and efficiency. Among these opportunities were key end-to-end processeswhich:
connect multiple departments at the same time and thus increase efficiency
are often demanding for initial processing of large amounts of data and documents
Processes prioritize on Map of Opportunities to Four quadrants:
QuickWins
Projects
Nice-to-Garden
Ignore
For each of the 17 departments, it was created unique process mapwhich can be gradually automated using various technologies.
Strategic Plan: a holistic approach to digitalisation
The result of the business analysis was two strategic documents.
first describes in detail the opportunities of all 17 departments and their readiness for digitalization.
Second contains a management summary and methodological recommendations for subsequent changes.
Key outputs
roadmap Follow-up digitisation projects
prioritization Processes by QuickWins, Projects or Ignore
definitions Key end-to-end processes
guesses Costs for individual solutions
handouts for future suppliers
referrals technologies
Example: input to select BPM
The division of the digital transformation into phases allowed Vítkovice to focus on the most pressing needs.
Therefore, they immediately launched a tender for BPM or the acquisition of durable tablets for production.
Digitization strategy
When you need to digitize, but you don't know where to start.
“We focused on creating a strategic plan for the digital transformation of the Vítkovice Steel organization. By identifying opportunities for high-impact automation, we have helped make informed decisions that maximize efficiency and competitiveness in the long term. “
