IBM computerises Electrica management

IBM and some of its partners will complete an integrated information system to manage Electrica’s operations this year. The investment is worth $12 million, obtained from a loan. “The programme will allow analysing every single operation of Electrica in real time, both in terms of management – costs and revenues, and in terms of ways to boost the efficiency of the installations and to cut costs,” Zonel Vasiliu, head of the Electrical Power Distribution, IT and Communications Department within Electrica explained. The eight branches of the national electricity supplier and distributor will be managed as a whole by using the SAP R/3 (Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing) software application. “As soon as the programme is finished, we will have eight centralised data processing centres, one for each branch, and a communications network that will allow linking these centres and the access of all the users to the computation and production system in these units,” Electrica’s representative said. ZF