Dormac Drives Automation with Migration to Infor Cloud

South Africa-November 28, 2023, 09:00 AM

Ship repair and marine engineering business has chosen to upgrade its Infor LN solution with iOCO, embracing SaaS to leverage the benefits of the cloud

DURBAN, South Africa – Nov. 28, 2023 – Infor^®, the industry cloud company, today announced that Dormac Marine & Engineering, a division of Southey Holdings, has embarked on an upgrade journey, moving its existing Infor LN enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to the cloud. Having implemented Infor LN in 2014, Dormac recognised the value in a SaaS approach needed today.

Dormac Marine & Engineering provides a full spectrum of ship repair and specialised engineering services to owners and operators of cargo vessels, passenger liners, navy vessels and offshore construction vessels. With ship repair yards in Cape Town, Durban, Richards Bay, and Saldanha in South Africa, and Walvis Bay in Namibia, Dormac offers a variety of services, including; ship repairs, oil and gas projects, and industrial engineering projects.

crew maneuvers metal shaft into place in ship repair in drydock
According to Siva Pillay, IT manager at Dormac, while the previous implementation of Infor LN showed immediate benefits — and has continued to drive value over the past nine years — it was beginning to become outdated. “As a business, we realised that the latest service pack and new feature releases were no longer going to support the version of LN that Dormac was on. Now the question became whether to change our entire ERP system or upgrade to the Infor Cloud.”

Having conducted in-depth evaluations of a variety of ERP solutions, Pillay and his team carefully considered which direction would make the most sense for the business, both financially and operationally. Dormac soon realised that getting another system to a similar functionality as the current LN would require time consuming and expensive customisation — and still would not be totally compatible with the older LN version. “As a business operating in a projects environment, a single day’s delay could cost us millions. We knew that the solution we chose had to be agile, automated, and offer unmatched reporting capabilities,” Pillay says.

With a strategic approach, the team at Infor partner iOCO guided Dormac in charting the best course to ensure its ERP system was geared for the future, while also enjoying continued support and easy upgrades, immediately deployed. As a result, Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise was selected. As the upgrade begins in earnest, iOCO is working closely with Dormac to identify which processes and reports will be moved to the cloud today, and where enhancement opportunities can be capitalised on. The teams will be taking all historical data to the cloud rather than only opening balances, ensuring easy and complete reference into past projects and eliminating the need to run two systems.

ship hull under repair in drydock
Offering a data lake, reporting, and dashboarding benefits, the move is set to greatly enhance and simplify Dormac’s project module design, driving intelligent information that empowers teams to work effectively anywhere in the world.

“This upgrade will help strengthen and continue the development of the way Dormac does business,” concludes Belinda Best, solution executive at iOCO. “From the Infor OS cloud platform, dashboards, and workflows to true automation driving efficiencies — and the value of utilising an existing licensing model with no additional costs — this cloud approach is set to drive massive business value.”

“We are excited, as the Dormac team, to embark on this upgrade journey with Infor, our trusted and long-term ERP partner,” said Devon Simpkins, Dormac’s financial director. “This upgrade to the Infor Cloud, with the release of related new features, perfectly aligns to our strategic vision of incorporating cutting-edge technologies into our shipyards. We aim to enhance operational efficiencies and, ultimately, passing these benefits onto our valued clients through our ever-improving service offerings.”

Learn more about Infor CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise.