Turnpoint Solutions

"The work performed by Turnpoint and Seismi has been expertly managed and executed in all areas. We believe that the solution they have delivered is world-class."

James Beams
CFO | Anglo American Copper

Partner

Seismi Consulting

Objectives

• Control: implement a governance solution to gain control of account proliferation and ensure business rules are followed
• Integrate: Facilitate integration with group architecture
• Standardise: create standardised view of the business allowing direct comparison between operations
• Flexible: ensure the solution can adapt to ever changing business needs
• Scalable: ensure the application will support Anglo Copper as they continue to grow their business
• Auditable: improve auditing and eliminate the need for complex reconciliations
• Simplify: the systems environment
• Align: Align budgeting processes to the chart of accounts to ensure that budget and actuals can be compared easily
• Automate: data transfers between core financial applications

Challenges

• Provide consistent audited data allowing the business to understand the calculations underpinning every number they report
• Stop the proliferation of accounts through the implementation of a governance solution
• Create a robust, flexible, scalable logical model of the Copper mining business that can easily be adapted to absorb new acquisitions
• Provide a standard, efficient method for generating reports, thereby freeing expensive business resource to analyse information
• Optimise data transfer between key financial application

Data Migration

Specified the requirements for a data migration tool to allow the efficient transfer of data between core financial applications, including the group consolidation tool. These transfers are and audited and have eliminated any manual intervention.

Technologies

• Oracle
• Hyperion
• Business Objects
• Progress | Sonic
• Mincom
• HP

Company Overview

Anglo Copper is a division of Anglo American plc with turnover of over US $3.9 billion (2009). Its strategy is to find, acquire, develop and operate long life, low cost mines in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.

In Chile they have interests in six copper operations. These operations consist of the wholly-owned Los Bronces, El Soldado, Mantos Blancos and Mantoverde mines, the Chagres smelter and a 44% interest in the Collahuasi mine. The mines also produce associated by-products such as molybdenum and silver.

Anglo Copper has controlling interests in the Quellaveco and Michiquillay copper projects in Peru and a 50% interest in the Pebble project in Alaska.

Situation

James Beams, Anglo Copper’s Chief Financial Officer, described the situation at the start of the project: “At Anglo American Copper we recognised that we needed to make our financial processes and supporting IT infrastructure more effective. The issues we faced included: multiple off-book adjustments; core financial reports that were inefficiently produced using several applications and sources of data; an inconsistent chart of accounts; a systems landscape that had proliferated following historic mergers; and finally, an integration with the Anglo American PLC consolidation tool which was inefficient and relied heavily on manual processes. We engaged with Turnpoint and its partner Seismi to resolve these core issues.”

Solution

Logical Model: delivered a governance solution to help Anglo Copper understand and report on its business. The model is divided into three inter-related elements.

• Control: A governance layer controlling the general ledger ensuring that all accounts are created properly and only when authorised.
• Flexible: A flexible standardisation layer that models Anglo Copper’s business. The model ensures that general ledger accounts are mapped exactly once to the key financial reports.
• Standardise: Finally, there is a fixed report layer that allows the business to design standard reports directly off data modelled in the standardisation layer.

Eliminate "Off-book" adjustments: understood and documented a new process to ensure that all off-book adjustments were eliminated, thereby allowing key financial reports to be run in real time directly off the general ledger.

Standardised Mappings: centralised and standardised all business mappings in the logical model, making them transparent and easy to change. A reporting tool was provided for the conversion process to ensure users were given early access to key financial data.

Standardise Reports: delivered a standardised reporting solution allowing reports to be specified centrally in the logical model, and released to users overnight. This ensures that all operations are using exactly the same reports, calculated in an identical manner thereby allowing true comparison between operations.

Testimonial

Turnpoint and Seismi brought a combination of business understanding, technical expertise and demonstrable mining industry experience. Over the last 6 months they have rapidly implemented a solution that has delivered a standardised reporting solution from a series of inconsistent chart of accounts, implemented a strong account and chart governance process, whilst minimising the impact on end users allowing us to avoid an extensive change management programme. In addition they have decommissioned unnecessary applications and removed off-book adjustments. Most importantly this solution is scalable and flexible, allowing us to accommodate any changes that may be prescribed to the Group systems architecture at a later date.

The project has improved our financial processes by increasing the transparency and integrity of our data and maximising the control of our general ledger application. The solution has migrated all our key mappings into a logical model, which provides centralised control of all our key financial data. Our general ledger and budget application can now feed data directly into the Anglo American PLC consolidation tool without manual intervention.

The reaction to Turnpoint and Seismi’s new solution has been overwhelmingly positive. It has given the finance team the control we need over our reporting solutions, whilst the reports themselves provide accurate, reconcilable information to our management in a timely and effective manner. It is envisaged that significant management time previously spent reconciling systems will be saved as a result of the project. Its flexibility and scalability will allow us to adapt to ongoing Group or local initiatives that my finance team will face. The work performed by Seismi and Turnpoint has been expertly managed and executed in all areas. We believe that the solution they have delivered is world-class.

James Beams
Chief Financial Officer | Anglo American Copper