Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the largest power utility company in the Middle East, has awarded two major SAP ERP application contracts to  Wipro Arabia, in a strategic partnership with the subsidiary of India-based IT leader Wipro.

Wipro will implement and rollout the plant maintenance and project system functionality of the SAP ERP application for SEC’s distribution business line across Saudi Arabia.

Once implemented, it is expected to enable the power utility company to have an integrated system that offers centralized and standardized processes across its plants. This will help ensure uptime of distribution networks, expense controls and effective utilization of assets.

Wipro plans to implement the fully functional and integrated bilingual (Arabic/English) solution, which will allow SEC to methodically migrate existing data from current digitized and manually maintained systems to SAP ERP.

The SAP ERP-based system is expected to go live in the next 10 months and is designed to enable SEC to serve customers better by increasing availability of assets due to increased uptime. In addition, the solution will help it bring all of Saudi Arabia onto a single and standardized platform that will help SEC to streamline day-to-day operations and increase operational and financial efficiencies.

It will also provide the company with the necessary visibility and planning capabilities needed for year-round maintenance activities, helping to keep slippage in check on vital maintenance schedules.

Thomas George, general manager and head, Wipro Arabia, said: “We are partnering with SEC in this transformational initiative to enhance its effectiveness and competitiveness in the market by deploying the state-of-the-art SAP ERP solution and delivering efficient IT services.”

“We are confident that our domain expertise combined with the enhanced talent pool will help us support SEC in its endeavour to provide best-in-class-service to its customers. We have traditionally had a strong position in the utilities space in the global market, and this will allow us to further strengthen our leadership in this space in Saudi Arabia.”

Mohammad A Al-Nahari - Nebras Program executive director, Saudi Electricity Company, said: “With this programme, we will be able to scale up our operations in a significant way and seamlessly manage our distribution networks. Wipro’s deep domain capability and technology-leadership will help us deliver cost-effective services and serve our large customer base in an efficient manner.”

Ahmed AlFaifi, managing director, SAP Saudi Arabia, said: “The decision by Saudi Electricity to expand their existing footprint of SAP ERP with the implementation of the asset management processes will help further strengthen the ability of the power utility company to achieve cost savings and operational efficiencies.”

“With electricity consumption growing at an accelerated rate of 8 per cent per annum in Saudi Arabia, we believe this expansion will provide SEC with the most innovative application technology platform that will help power the Kingdom’s growth today and in the future,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service