TMS steel mill services is aligned for the future

Approach

“Once they learned about OneStream, they realized it's a platform — not just a tool,” Soukup said. The company was very interested in a platform for future capabilities, but it needed a partner for a smooth transition.

“Our expertise in OneStream meant that we could quickly present them with a look and feel for the new interface,” Soukup said. “We quickly gave them the look and feel of the new app, so we could iterate during the design and early build. We could quickly say, ‘This is what you specified, and this is what it means,” and then tweak based feedback.”

The Grant Thornton Technology Modernization service and OneStream practice tailored a team to collaborate with TMS, helping to ensure understanding and efficiency. “Culturally, I think our team was a great fit with TMS,” Soukup said. “That was important. We were able to adapt to their culture and find some synergies pretty quickly.” Those synergies helped the teams work closely for success. “With their core team, we had a really integrated approach to build and test. We were considerate about their time, but brought them in as early and often as was appropriate. The people who will own the tool at the end of the day got a sense of ownership early. That played a big role in giving comfort to the end users.”

The Grant Thornton team also worked behind the scenes to enable the transition and ensure that the new platform would have all the data and functionality the TMS team needed. “We had to rework some metadata. There are fundamental architecture differences between the old solution and the new platform — it was not a lift-and-shift,” Soukup said. As a long-established global company, TMS had a massive archive of data to transition. That process can be complex and time-consuming for these implementations, especially if you want to ensure the data is ready to fuel advanced insight on the new platform. After the team moved over core metadata, it refined the data to match the company’s current business model and the platform’s new capabilities. “We put their data onto a platform that’s more user-friendly, efficient and has leading capabilities. They can drill down into the data and more effectively interrogate it in a more intuitive way. The new tool provides a workflow capability that guides users through the monthly close process in a way that lets you include more checks and balances.”

The Grant Thornton team delivered three primary functions:

• Discovery: Scoped the project, aligned the chart of accounts and defined a detailed implementation plan with a timeline and dependencies
• Implementation: Implemented the TMS Consolidations solution, including:
  • Developed process standards based on best practices to ensure OneStream replaced legacy processes, including an application design to support the detailed chart of accounts and accounting
  • Created more than 30 workflow profiles
  • Established an automated load solution for the close process, using a distributed batch harvesting process that certifies and loads operating unit trial balance data with confirmation rules to allow easy visibility to data quality controls
• Archival: Developed a means for TMS to store 12 years of archived data, including journals and calculated accounts 

“We helped them make this change, and positioned them to grow, with flexibility in the platform so they can keep getting the most out of it,” Soukup said.

Results

Now, TMS has a platform that empowers greater efficiency and results in financial analysis. Users can complete financial processes with less manual effort and have more autonomy over their reporting. The improved ad hoc reporting capabilities even extend to executives, who can use the intuitive OneStream interface to yield insights on demand.

“From the C-suite down, they get hands-on data — and they want to have access to that data,” Soukup said. “The ad hoc reporting that we configured for OneStream has been very well received. With executives, the biggest win is the guided reporting we configured for them. It helps them get to the answers they need in a guided and intuitive fashion, rather than hunting and pecking through the data.”

For TMS, the new OneStream platform is delivering ROI across the five parameters of cost, time, accuracy, insights and flexibility.

Aligned for the future

TMS is now implementing a new ERP solution, and its OneStream implementation is ready to integrate. “We built flexibility in our model to allow integration and provided training and thought leadership on things they should consider for the new ERP chart of account," Soukup said. That flexibility and guidance have helped TMS streamline its ERP implementation. “We’ve heard that, so far, it's been a very uneventful transition to the new ERP in terms of loading data into their consolidations tool.”

“Down the line, tax and treasury can benefit from the reworked data in the new solution,” Soukup said. “It wasn't bad data before, but now the data is aligned to an updated entity hierarchy. They're able to provide data with a legal entity structure from which those two groups can start some of their reporting.”

The company can also use the platform to empower its asset management, planning for equipment usage, maintenance, retirement and more. “Today, they're using complex spreadsheet-based models,” Soukup said. “They're grounded in significant, long-term, trusted expertise within their company. They have tenured employees in the space.” However, the new platform could help the company adapt for new employees or equipment, maintaining its capability to anticipate asset needs. “It's steel mill services. It's already a harsh process on equipment, and then the environment can play a big role in that. Getting a better handle on trends and modeling could save them significantly when it comes to planned maintenance. There is the ability to adjust maintenance and replacement schedules based on driver-based modeling, and useful life estimates.”