Coal India on look out for ERP solution, Cisco pitches in

State-owned miner Coal India on Saturday said it is on the lookout for technology companies to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) and communications solutions across its mines.

This announcement followed shortly after it said it had allocated Rs.60,000 crore as planned capital expenditure over a period of five years.

"We have to be contemporary and need communications devices and implement ERP solution," company chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya said during an interactive event here organised by industry chamber CII.

The ERP solution will help the world's largest coal miner to streamline its business processes by providing a single location for all data collation which will help the company narrow down on particular decisions suited for particular mines.

Besides, since the information technology solution offers scalability aspects, adding new functionality to the system would be easier for the miner. This would easy translate into a lot more easier management of new processes and departments among several others.

"We are looking for solution which is compatible with the guidelines from the directorate general of mines safety," he said.

The Coal India chief said that the company needs to adopt itself to modern technologies to improve its efficacy.

According to Bhattacharya, while the company will continue to enhance its mining capabilities to meet the one billion tonne coal output target by 2020, evacuation of coal is likely to become a problem in the future.

"Management of logistics will become a big issue tomorrow and we need not only focus on coal output, but also improve coal quality," he said.

During the CII session, US-based technology firm Cisco was quick enough to pitch itself in to fill the requirement.

Company officials of Cisco have verbally proposed to offer the miner the required solutions while a detailed proposal will be sent out later.

"If we are able to implement communications solutions in our mines and use technology to streamline our processes, it would be a huge step forward for us," Bhattacharya added.