SAP Arabia says it continues to spearhead enterprise resource planning (ERP) software applications across the region, providing global solutions to the oil, gas and petrochemical sector with dedicated local support.

This support includes consultancy, project implementation, comprehensive customer technical services, education and training to provide a total enterprise solution.

''Many of the region's leading petroleum and petrochemical organisations are applying the best business practices available from SAP R/3 integrated enterprise solutions within a 19-country territory covering the Middle East and North Africa,'' says a company spokesman.

He continues: ''SAP R/3 provides a greater control of information by integrating all operations within an organisation from finance and human resources to production processes, manufacturing, sales, and distribution.

''This seamless integration across the entire enterprise ensures that managers have instant access to updated information to make more accurate management decisions. All the region's petroleum companies are focusing on improving cost efficiencies with SAP providing cost-effective solutions with predicable returns on investment.

''Saudi Aramco has the world's largest oil and gas SAP implementation, having already adopted ERP software and R/3 integrated solutions across its business. ''

SAP Arabia is headquartered in Jeddah with sales and technical support offices in Dhahran. Dubai is also the location for sales and technical support at its high-tech offices in Emirates Towers, together with a state-of-the-art training facility.

SAP Arabia recently established offices in Cairo to enhance its service support in Egypt and North Africa. SAP Arabia already has 12 customers in Egypt and 19 customers in North Africa hence the creation of a high-tech office environment and training facility, similar to Dubai, in its prime location in the heart of Cairo's business district overlooking the Nile.

Sabic is rolling-out an SAP R/3 project that will integrate all local and international affiliates of the group by the end of this year. The roll-out, known as the Sabic Business Transformation Project, aims to consolidate all IT systems under a single software platform across the entire corporation.

The spokesman elaborates: ''The contract covers thousands of employees, with the greatest number using the human resources module. The number of users will increase throughout the implementation process as the system is rolled-out to Sabic's affiliates.

''All core modules will be installed in the first phase of the project and form the foundation for advanced applications including supply chain management and customer relationship management solutions in later phases.''

Sabic is currently implementing all the modules of the system excluding Service Management. They are: Financial Accounting (FI); Controlling (CO); Treasury -Cash Management (TR-CM); Investment Management (IM); Project System; Materials Management (MM); Sales & Distribution (SD); Production Planning (PP); Plant Maintenance (PM); Quality Management (QM); and Human Resources (HR).

The system will be centralised in Jubail and all affiliates will eventually access the system remotely. It will run on IBM RS/6000 servers, the AIX operating system and Oracle databases.

IBM Global Services will oversee the implementation of the project while SAP Arabia will provide Sabic with all necessary support services to ensure that the implementation runs smoothly. SAP Arabia is also assisting with training services.

Although this SAP project began earlier this year, Sabic is not new to the R/3 system.

National Methanol Company (Ibn Sina) in Jubail Industrial City was one of the first companies in Saudi Arabia to successfully implement SAP R/3 when it migrated from its Legacy system 1997. Over the last five years, Ibn Sina has embarked on a series of upgrades, all of which were delivered on time and under budget.

''As a Sabic affiliate, Ibn Sina is maintaining its competitive edge by a quality training approach helping to deliver value to the initial SAP implementation,'' the spokesman says. ''Ibn Sina is aiming to maximise its full IT potential across its entire infrastructure''.

A total of eight IT professionals drawn from Ibn Sina, Samad and Ar Razi, and Amiantit have completed SAP Academy Training for application development and ABAP workbench in order to qualify as SAP technical consultants.

This knowledge-transfer training is carried out on site by SAP Arabia with a full time trainer using an internet demonstration evaluation system (IDES) server for the course duration. This allows students to take part in practical as well as theoretical training.

''The pre-configured IDES server provides students with core competencies and develops an in-house IT structure better able to support SAP R/3 applications,'' he says. ''Importantly, Ibn Sina and other SAP users can reduce reliance on external consultants by developing internal technical support expertise for business critical applications.''

Meanwhile, SAP Arabia recently launched SAP R/3 Enterprises, a significant upgrade that allows data entry in any computer language. ''This unicoded structure will provide even greater versatility to the SAP R/3 architecture,'' the spokesman comments.

SAP has also extended the maintenance periods for SAP R/3 releases 3.11 to 4.6C.

SAP R/3 Enterprise is available to all SAP R/3 customers as an integral part of SAP's maintenance services. ''This new solution has been developed using SAP R/3 release 4.6C as the basis, so an upgrade to SAP R/3 Enterprise is easiest if performed from release 4.6C,'' he says. ''It consists of SAP R/3 Enterprise Core and SAP R/3 Enterprise Add-ons; functional enhancements are delivered as add-ons."

''Customers can be sure of seamless integration with mySAP.com, flexible upgrades and developments for new business processes, as well as a more rapid innovation cycle and the more flexible management of customer-specific implementation and development projects,'' the spokesman says.

''After the initial delivery, the system will be maintained using support packages. New technologies from SAP's separate development departments will allow further developments to be made available in SAP R/3 Enterprise as encapsulated add-ons, a method that ensures flexibility and stability.

''Further developments in the core will mainly concern infrastructure, quality, performance, and legal requirements.''

''But that's not all. Thanks to the SAP Web Application Server, SAP R/3 Enterprise is fully Internet-enabled. It also has a range of new e-business functions, and optimises support for portal technologies,'' the spokesman adds.