ASRY (Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard), which was established in 1977, handles the repair and conversion of ships, rigs and naval vessels, in addition to fabrication and engineering services covering onshore and offshore industrial components. The company has more than 2,000 employees and operates large-scale facilities including a 500,000-deadweight drydock, two floating docks, 15 repair berths, and a 250,000+-square-meter fabrication area. ASRY completes around 250 projects annually.

As a pillar of the region’s maritime sector, ASRY’s directors were keen to streamline and automate processes across every department in the company and upgrade ASRY’s digital integration to industry best practices. The company selected Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise, which will run on Amazon Web Services (AWS), delivering high performance, scalability and security to replace the existing ERP system.

Given the large scale of its operation and the high volume of complex projects it is working on at any one time, ASRY also opted to deploy Infor Birst, allowing it to gather, analyse and extract value from data generated across all areas of its business and operations. This will provide powerful insights from the boardroom to the shop floor, supporting sound decision making, particularly in terms of understanding which areas of the business may require improvement and where to best allocate resources.

Infor’s solutions will help ASRY improve the quality of service for its global customer base, and help it tap into a global marine port and service market that is expected to reach $97 billion by 2025, according to research from Lucintel.

“As part of ASRY’s modernisation, this project is a digital overhaul of the entire company’s processes and procedures,” commented ASRY Managing Director Mazen Matar. “It is the most wide-reaching administrative transformation in the facility’s 44-year history, and after an extensive feasibility investigation, we have chosen Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise. ASRY completes over 250 projects per year across four industrial sectors, and once this cloud-based system is deployed, these operations will be simplified and digitised, bringing agility to the business, and ultimately streamlining our ability to serve customers, maximise ASRY’s contribution to the Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030 and boost the region’s maritime sector.”

“ASRY’s use of AWS for the new ERP also creates further integration with the kingdom’s burgeoning ICT sector,” continues Matar. “We are the latest in a wave of businesses and government entities tapping into the advanced and secure technology infrastructure being developed and expanded throughout Bahrain, and we join an elite list of global firms that have also chosen Infor’s services.”

Amel Gardner, Infor vice president MEA, said: “Infor helps organisations improve productivity, efficiency, and visibility across their operations, enabling management to make better-informed choices. We’re thrilled to be working with ASRY on its digital transformation, and we look forward to helping it achieve its business goals in a dynamic industry.”

ASRY and Infor aim to complete the deployment of the first phase of Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise within 11 months. The platform will incorporate all divisions of the yard, including commercial, supply chain, production, finance and general services. As well as a simplified IT architecture, streamlined and automated processes, and end-to-end visibility of key aspects of the business, there will also be modules for a new cloud-based human capital management (HCM) capability to help ASRY deliver streamlined workforce processes, and a new customer relationship management (CRM) module.

Gathered for the ASRY and Infor signing ceremony on March 11 are Amel Gardner, Infor vice president MEA; Jörg Jung, Infor EVP and general manager EMEA; Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Bahrain minister of oil and gas; Mazen Matar, ASRY managing director; and Sahar Ataaei, ASRY CFO.