One of the biggest management system updates in Latin America takes place to streamline and simplify the company's processes
Petrobras took another important step in its Digital Transformation journey with the conversion of its integrated management system from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. The new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is in line with the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan and with the technological drivers of Petrobras' Information Technology and Telecommunications (ICT) area. Updating the SAP tool streamlines and simplifies the company's processes, becoming the largest project to convert a management system in Latin America and one of the largest in the world.
The system conversion and initiatives to implement other integrated technological solutions are gathered in Project #tranS4mar, which is an allusion to the name of the S/4HANA product and the word transform. The objective of the project encompasses the optimization, digitization and selective review of Petrobras' financial, corporate and business processes, in line with the best information security practices and the search for a better experience using the solution. The project was carried out in collaboration between Deloitte, SAP and Microsoft.
In addition to the system conversion, new solutions are being implemented, such as SAP Ariba, which will replace the tool that supports the company's Procurement process, Blackline, for automating and documenting the Finance and Accounting processes, and SAP EHS, for activities related to Safety, Environment and Occupational Health.
System conversion involved all of Petrobras
SAP S/4HANA is behind several company management processes, including the Financial, Performance, Procurement, Human Resources, Exploration and Production, Refining, Safety, Environment, Occupational Health areas, among others. Between teams from Petrobras and partner companies, more than 500 professionals worked directly on the project.
Petrobras uses technology in all its areas as a way to leverage its business. The idea is to simplify, automate and digitize management processes within the new SAP, in the cloud, placing the system as a single source of information for all areas of the company, allowing greater agility, mobility and, consequently, productivity. Users will be able, for example, to carry out intelligent searches through virtual assistants and take advantage of analytical resources embedded in the solution, using mobile devices.
The conversion challenge
The size and volume of use of Petrobras' SAP ECC system made the conversion to SAP S/4HANA a major technical challenge. Preparatory activities and several user tests were carried out over more than two years. In August of this year, with an unavailability of less than 48 hours, the company converted a system with a database of more than 30 Terabytes, used by more than 23,000 people daily (with peaks of 11,000 simultaneous users). With the conversion, the database was reduced by 47%, to 16 Terabytes. The SAP S/4HANA solution at Petrobras is in a single cloud environment, Microsoft Azure, in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) modality.
Petrobras, together with partners Deloitte, SAP and Microsoft, managed to make this entire technological transition without prejudice to the company's operations. One of the gains already noticed was the decrease in the processing time of some of the company's routine activities. Petrobras' payroll, which includes more than 40,000 employees, was processed in September with a reduction of 12 hours compared to the previous version of the system, for example.
Since its implementation, in August of this year, SAP S/4HANA has been processing national and international payments in the order of R$ 5 billion/day, received more than 72,000 proposals from suppliers in its contracting processes and has issued around 5,000 notes tax per day. These system changes are expected to bring productivity gains to the company, with an expected return of over US$ 190 million by 2025.
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