Implementation of Management Information System (MIS) including Financial Management System(FMS) in ICAR

Abstract

The sub-project “Implementation of Management Information System including Financial Management System in ICAR” (Sub-project code: 30(9)/2006/RFPS/NAIP/O&M) was sanctioned in April 2010 and later transferred to IASRI, New Delhi in January 2012. This is a project being carried out under National Agricultural Innovation Project of ICAR which is funded by the World Bank. The Consortium leader of project is Director, IASRI, New Delhi and five ICAR institutes (NAARM, CIFE, CRIJAF, CMFRI and NDRI) have been involved in the project as partners to achieve the objectives of the project.

This project was envisaged and started with single objective: “To implement a robust and flexible ERP system which includes solution for Financial Management, Project Management, Material Management, Payroll & Pension and Human Resource Management at ICAR.” IASRI on behalf of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi signed a contract agreement with IBM India Private Ltd. for customization of Oracle ERP (Oracle R12.13) as per ICAR requirements and implementing the robust and flexible FMS & MIS System for ICAR HQ and its institutes. Later in April 2013, another objective “To develop ICT Infrastructure and Unified Messaging & Web Hosting Solution for ICAR” was added to the project. This objective targets to address the long-due requirement of having a unique e-mail id with ICAR domain for each ICAR personnel and provide a unified messaging solution. This will also provide the facility of hosting the websites /web applications, developed at different institutes of ICAR and facility for co-locating the application specific servers will be also be developed along with Storage Area Network (SAN) facility for hosted applications.

The project started with requirement gathering and analysis after the contract was signed with IBM India Pvt. Ltd in January 2012. Based on requirement analysis, AS-IS documents which covered the current process followed in ICAR institutions in the functional areas of Financial Management, Project Management, Supply Chain Management, Human Resource Management and Payroll and TO-BE documents that covered the mapping of current processes in different functional areas in Oracle application were prepared in discussion with core team and partner organizations. The implementation was planned to be carried out in two Phases: Phase-I (A), Phase-I (B) and Phase-II. Phase-I (A) consisted of six large institutes & IASRI, Phase-I (B) of 14 medium institutes and Phase-II consisted of remaining 90 small institutes of ICAR. Development of the ICAR-ERP solution started with the designing of its technical architecture in discussion with technical committee. System and networking requirements for end-users at institutes were finalized and communicated to ICAR institutes. Different instances for Production, Development, Test and Training are planned. Production instance is designed in fail-over safe mode. Database and Application servers are designed in Active-Passive mode. ICAR-ERP solution is developed by customizing Oracle R12.13 ERP solution as per ICAR policies and requirements. This was carried out in consultation with the business core groups through discussions, interactions, meetings and workshops. Once the solution was developed, to have the feedback of the core business groups and partner institutes, User Acceptance Testing workshops were organized at IASRI to demonstrate, test and evaluate the functionalities of the developed solution. The feedbacks from UAT workshops were incorporated in the system. For the procurement of production hardware (servers, storage and associated peripherals) M/s Megaheartz Pvt. Ltd. was issued the notification of award through NCB process and the instances are configured at IASRI.

Data digitization activity, being a crucial and integral part of ICAR-ERP implementation, was started in various Phase-I (A and B) institutes. Through National Competitive Bid process, bids and contract was signed with M/s Karvy India Pvt. Ltd. Data digitization activity constituted of two parts: (1) Digitization of data from various hardcopy sources (registers, files, books etc.) in each institute and (2) Verification of the digitized data by the institute officials. The data was to be entered in Excel templates designed for different functional areas. In this regard, sensitization workshops were organized at partner institutes and were attended by their personnel as well as the personnel from NBPGR, New Delhi; IARI, New Delhi; CSSRI Karnal, NBAGR Karnal, DWR Karnal, DMR Solan and CPRI, Shimla and they were sensitized for MIS/FMS implementation along with detailed discussion on data digitization templates. Sensitization workshop was also organized at IASRI. Karvy completed the data digitization work in Phase-I (A and B) institutes. Digitized data was verified at the respective institutes by institute officials. The verified data was compiled and delivered by Karvy to IASRI. Data was cleaned and uploaded to production instance using PL/SQL scripts. Data during the cut over was collected and uploaded in system. In the meantime, Karvy initiated the data digitization activity in Phase-II institutes. Data digitization activity has been completed for 57 institutes from Phase-II institutes. ICAR-ERP is hosted on IASRI website and can be accessed through URL: http://icarerp.iasri.res.in and it can also be visited through http://www.iasri.res.in/misfms/. The system has integrated processes being carried out in the five major functional areas: Payroll and Pension, Grants and Budgeting, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources and Project Management. IBM and IASRI project team members imparted end-users trainings for institute personnel in their respective functional areas before the implementation of ICAR-ERP. Strategies regarding cutover & migration of data and onsite & offsite support were planned. Operationalization of ICAR-ERP solution started from February 2104 in phased manner. System has been implemented in five institutes: IASRI, IARI, NAARM, CIFE and NDRI from 1st February 2014. The system is implemented in ICAR HQ and IVRI, Bareilly on 25th February 2014. The implementation for thirteen (13) institutes under Phase-I (B) has been done in 1st and 3rd week of April 2014. Implementation for Eight (8) institutes of Phase II has been started from third week of June 2013. Implementation for remaining institutes of Phase –II will be completed by December 2014. The implemented ICAR-ERP will provide a centralized data management system across all ICAR institutes and finally create an IT environment in ICAR across all disciplines.

During the course of the project activities, a number of documents were published in the form of Application System Requirement Specification (SRS) (AS-IS), Application Customization Requirements Specification (CRS) (TO-BE) documents, Operational Manuals, Technical Reports as well as media product in the form of Computer Based Training (CBTs) for using ICAR-ERP have been developed. A paper from the project was presented in a national conference in 2014. A website was developed http://www.iasri.res.in/misfms/ for this project which acts as a repository of all the documents, training manuals, CBTs, excel templates data digitization and other project related information. As any typical ERP system, ICAR-ERP also integrates all of the organization’s functions by allowing the modules to share and transfer information freely. In addition, all information is centralized in a single relational database accessible by all modules, eliminating the need for multiple entries of the same data and since ICAR-ERP is a uniform platform it ensures that there is no discrepancy in the information that is processed. The project also rendered the capacity building for ICAR personnel by organizing various trainings before implementation of ICAR-ERP so that the solution can be used efficiently and effectively. The software ICAR ERP, developed in the project, is the product that ensures to bestow impressive strategic, operational and information-related benefits to ICAR in long run.

Presently, different e-mail services are being used by ICAR institutes which are provided by private service providers and the web hosting of applications is being done using NIC, ERNET and private service providers. Another objective of this project is to equip the ICAR institutes with a Unified Mail Messaging and Web Hosting Solution leading e-communication (e-mail, video-conferencing) among ICAR personnel and facility for hosting Web sites/ Web Applications. This facility will provide an environment for co-locating the application specific servers at IASRI which are presently located at the institute’s level and have been lacking compliance to standard practices along with Storage Area Network (SAN) facility for hosted applications. For this second and equally important component of this project i.e., ICT Infrastructure and Unified Messaging & Web Hosting Solution for ICAR, bids were invited as per International Competitive Bidding (ICB) process. Bid evaluation was carried out and final approval was obtained in February 2014. Contract agreement was signed with M/s Wipro Solution. Facility has been established at IASRI. ICT infrastructure has been designed in such a way so as to provide redundancy for Power supplies, Controllers, CPUs to support 100% uptime experience. It meets the international standard of Data Center Tier II specifications with adherence to ISO 27001, ITIL and TIA 942 standards. The solution is based on Structured, Scalable & Resilient Network Architecture. The data center contains servers which are connected to high performance LAN Switches, for processing millions of packets per second, depending on Users & Application and its contents. The computing environment consists of 448 core computing with 150TB storage space which will enable the high speed of computing / processing of data. Virtualization will aid in segmentation of computing for resource allocation and making available the need based storage for different applications. In the software component Microsoft Exchange Mail server, WINDOWS and LINUX OS along various Databases (MSACCES, MYSQL, SQL SERVER etc) are available in the Data Center. The services offered are Mail Messaging and hosting of Web sites/Applications.

To sustain the developed solutions under this project and to keep them in a successfully operational mode in future, a modern and well established ICT infrastructure is a necessity. To monitor and manage the project operations, under this project as a part of the ICT infrastructure development, resources, Network Operating Centers, well equipped labs with video conference facility and auditorium have been established and made operational by carrying out civil work.