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Moscow, October 4, 2022: El 6 Group will be granted a preferential loan within the program of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation for the digital business transformation project: “Improvement of the El 6 LLC capacity performance through the digitalization of accounting and operational planning”.

The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia, within Government Decree No. 1598, will support the systemically important company El 6 LLC, a manufacturer of electrode, cathode and other carbon-graphite products.

As part of the program, Sovcombank will provide El 6 LLC with a targeted loan of RUB 340 million. The funds will be allocated to a project for digitalization of accounting, operational planning and improvement of the capacity performance of the El 6 Novosibirsk, El 6 Novocherkassk, and El 6 Chelyabinsk branches.

“Support for projects aimed at digital transformation is a priority for the Ministry of Digital Development. Preferential loans will allow companies not to postpone digitalization projects,” commented Maksim Parshin, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.

“Digitalization and import substitution of software products are now one of the most relevant issues for enterprises. We help solve this problem using all possible forms of financing, including the involvement of state support measures. Sovcombank is one of the systemic banks that assists in implementing these measures,” said Aleksey Lyulyushin, Executive Director of the Corporate and Financial Services Department of Sovcombank.

 “The project will be implemented on two domestic platforms: 1C ERP Holding Management and APS Snaryad. Both software products are included in the register of Russian software. The copyright holder of 1C is 1C Soft, and of APS is Adeptik Plus, a Skolkovo resident,” said Ekaterina Gvozdeva, Deputy General Director and Financial Director of El 6. 

These software solutions are import-substituting products for the following foreign software: SAP, Oraсle, Preactor Siemens, Ortems APS (Ortems S.A.S.) – Dassault, Infor CloudSuite Industrial, JDA Factory Planner - i2 Factory Planner - Blue Yonder, Aspen Generic Dynamic Optimization Technology (GDOT) – Emerson.

 Operational production planning on the APS Snaryad platform is necessary for implementing a complex production planning process that handles more than 100 loading schemes for firing, graphitization and impregnation furnaces. In addition, the functionality of optimizing plans for order marginality, availability of raw materials and priority products should be applied taking into account the equipment readjustment and optimal resource utilization. The APS Snaryad will allow visualizing the system, developing new furnace loading schemes, and plotting Gantt charts under the equipment operation schedule.

Additionally, the following processes will be digitalized in the 1C:ERP:  procurement with integration into the b2b platform, sales from a potential deal to the actual order execution with recording of technological parameters of production, and accumulation of a data lake on the energy consumption of units for further optimization. The logistics module has been completed with the selection of optimal routes, types of transportation and delivery costs. Integration with the Railroad Etran system is also planned. 

As a result, El 6 Group plans to achieve maximum load and efficient use of the production capacities of three plants, improve product quality and reduce production planning time.

As part of the project, end-to-end integration of systems with MES, ZUP and TOIR will be carried out, a number of business processes at enterprises will be standardized, and an approach to product genealogy traceability will be formed.

The project implementation period is until 2024.

El 6 (previously EPM Group) is Russia’s major carbon-graphite producer. Its core business is production of high-tech electrode, cathode and other carbon-graphite products for enterprises of the steel, aluminum, ferroalloy, silicon, chemical, and machine-building industries. The Group is one of the world’s top 10 manufacturers of carbon-graphite products. The company includes three largest electrode enterprises: El 6 Novosibirsk, El Chelyabinsk, and El 6 Novocherkassk.