1. Chris Nelms Supplier Management Ameren’s Story Implementing
Supplier Lifecycle Management SLM
02 OCT 2014
Chris Nelms

2. About Ameren… Electric Customers 2.4 Million Gas Customers ~1 Million
Service Area 64,000 Sq Mi
Generation 10,300 MW
Electric System Miles 85,400
Gas System Miles 21,000
Total Assets $22 Billion
Total Revenues $6.6 Billion
Employees ~8,500
Fully Regulated
Presenter Introduction:
Chris Nelms leads the operations team charged with the ongoing strategic implementation of processes & systemic changes around the Supply Services Systems & Processes, which include further enablement of electronic supply chain collaboration. A licensed PMP, he holds an MBA and two Bachelor of Science Degrees.

3. Ameren & Oracle…
Ameren’s Oracle odyssey began in 2003 with two modules –
2004 brought in the eCommerce Consultant
2005 & 2006 the Source to Settle program was conceived and developed
2006 Sourcing was implemented stand alone and completely vanilla for ~16 users
2007 S2S was implemented full scale, big bang –
2007 Ameren joins Oracle North American Procurement Customer Advisory Board (CAB) Still the only investor owned utility on the CAB

4. Ameren & Oracle…
Database OBIEE
10g
11g SEP
HR Analytics APR 2013
P&SA OCT 2013
UPK
EBS Applications
Sourcing MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Procurement Contracts MAY 2009 SEP 2013
iProcurement MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Core Purchasing MAY 2009 SEP 2013
iSupplier Portal MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Services Procurement MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Accounts Payable MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Accounts Receivable MAY 2009 SEP 2013
CCTM* MAY 2009 SEP 2013
Buyer’s Work Center - - OCT 2009 SEP 2013 (Complex Procurement)
Hyperion - - DEC 2010 SEP 2013
iExpense - - JUL 2011 SEP 2013
SLM SEP 2013
General Ledger JUL 2014
*CCTM: Contractor Cost Tracking Module. Custom bolt on atop Services Procurement to handle recurring services

5. Ameren & Oracle… Chris Nelms Manager Process & Systems Group
Victor Alarcon
Sr Coordinator
Kate Minor
Sr Coordinator
Mike Renieri
Bus Perf Spc
Laura Angelo
SC Clerk
Tiffany Pallme
SC Analyst
Kay Cotner
SC Analyst
Lawanda McGill
SC Clerk
Melissa Orr
SC Clerk

6. Historical Supplier Situation…
Supplier General Maintenance
In 2008 Ameren maintained ~18,000 supplier records
AP Manages the overall supplier record, banking information and the remit-to site(s)
Supply Chain manages the purchasing sites and contacts for each supplier
2009 manually on-boarded 400 suppliers to iSupplier Portal
2009 supplier cleanup/purge project – 18K to 10K
No PO’s for past three years -
Nuclear plant specific suppliers exempted
2012 ALL new suppliers must be registered, trained and on-boarded to iSP
2013 Exceeded 2000 suppliers on iSP
All manually on-boarded

7. Historical Supplier Situation…
Supplier Insurance Maintenance
2009 Corporate Project Oversight Committee (CPOC) formed
Insurance requirements were increased in rigor during this approximate time frame
Browz ( was implemented to handle insurance certifications for all services suppliers with =/> $25K annual volume
All other services suppliers were handled manually in MS Access that containing the summary abstraction of the insurance in force for each supplier.
Access DB allowed for single user only
Roughly 5000 services suppliers maintained in Access
Re-certifications tend to be received at CY mid year and year end
Always a backlog of data entry on insurance. Always.

8. Supplier Addition Process…
Any Requisitioner in any Business Line can request any supplier
No real supplier vetting process in place
Buyers rationalization – Easier to setup than to research
In most cases the new supplier was just added, no questions asked
If a supplier insists on a credit application being completed:
Ameren has no credit department per se
Personal involvement
Hard push back on every request, insisting that due diligence in finding an existing, registered supplier be engaged
If after due diligence we were compelled to add the supplier, we provide a standard response including trade references and other descriptive information about the Ameren
Nothing really discouraging the addition of new suppliers based on request alone
New suppliers crept in incrementally over time

9. Supplier Lifecycle Management…
Supplier Maintenance Costs:
This reference from the AMR shocked us:
We didn’t know if this high end cost applied to us
We knew we were not considering the cost of supplier maintenance as such
We knew there were efficiencies Oracle AP and Purchasing by themselves were not addressing
“…companies are spending up to $1,000 per supplier annually…however, when information, enabled by technology, becomes visible across the organization, costs per supplier quickly dwindle to below $150 per supplier.”
- AMR Research, June 2009

10. SLM & Supplier Hub… Managing the Supplier Lifecycle
Consolidate
Data Quality
3rd Party Integrations
Publish
Supplier
Repository AP
SCM
Proc.
D&B
Analytics
Supplier Self Service Registration
Supplier Self Service Profile Management
Supplier & Stakeholder Questionnaires
Workflow Approvals
Managing Data Quality & Integration
Managing the Supplier Lifecycle
Supplier Lifecycle Management (Process)
Supplier Hub (Data & External Connectivity)

11. Supplier Data SLM… Supplier Management Designed to…
Do you know your top suppliers?
Do you know your high risk suppliers?
Are you adding new suppliers records when they already exist?
Can you analyze your supply base for diversity?
Do you know your tier-2 suppliers?
Do you maintain supplier profile data in multiple systems?
Does it take too long to on-board a new supplier?
When a supplier goes on hold, when do all your systems with supplier data know about it?
Supplier Data
Impact these processes
Procurement Centralization
Supply Base Rationalization
Strategic Sourcing
Social Responsibility
Contract Compliance
Risk Mitigation
S2S Execution
Supplier Management Designed to…
Reduce the cost/time of managing supplier information
Improve the quality/accuracy of supplier data

12. Single Supplier Master
SLM…
Transactional Data
Analytical Data
Single Supplier Master
Master Data
Spend Analytics
Dashboards
KPIs
Reports/Charts
S2S
Contracts
Sourcing
Purchase Orders
Invoices
Etc.
Supplier Hub
Extended Attributes*
De-Duplicates
Merges
Classify Suppliers
Integrate to Legacy & 3rdParty Data
Supplier Lifecycle Management
On-Board Suppliers
Supplier Audit
Supplier Assessment
Supplier Profile Self-Service
eBusiness Suite

13. Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Insurance Certification Management
Allows multiple users into the DB simultaneously
Effectively reduces the cycle throughput of maintenance and update by at least half
Justification for entire SLM module was covered by productivity improvements on this single point
In conjunction with extensive supplier search and grouping capability, improves supplier selection and grouping for sending mass actionable notifications
Insurance Certification Lookup/Reference
Buyers and Sourcing people no longer rely on worksheet index to determine if valid insurance is in force
They review directly in Oracle with an image of the certificate available

14. Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Certification Management
In addition to Insurance which is handled separately, SLM handles these certificate types as well for Ameren:
Abatement (general) certified
Asbestos certified
Health / Environmental certified
Training certified
ASME certified
The certificate area is wide open to accommodate a wide variety of certification management needs and can be augmented later as business needs change

15. CyberSecurity Certificate Retention
Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
CyberSecurity Certificate Retention
IT developed an elaborate (50+) question CyberSecurity Questionnaire
Use applicable for some IT suppliers only
Approval of CyberSecurity aspect separate from Purchasing/Sourcing approval
SLM will contain the questionnaire as a stand alone attachment only for CS approved suppliers

16. Supplier Communications & Notifications
Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Supplier Communications & Notifications
Extensive supplier search and grouping capability allowing the user to parse and group suppliers by extensive criteria
Insurance and other certifications are renewable annually
Notifications allows for quick and intuitive build of supplier communication across many possible points

17. Qualification Management (Supplier Diversity)
Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Qualification Management (Supplier Diversity)
SLM engages creates an invitation when users send requests for update out to suppliers
Registered suppliers can then update their information directly on SLM
Diversity takes these qualifications into Oracle via approval workflow
A third party is used to validate supplier qualifications twice per year

18. Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Supplier On-boarding
Ground Rules:
Ameren does not expose supplier registration to the internet
Policy is invitation only for new suppliers
Ameren developed a two round supplier approval process:
Round 1
All based and addresses the vetting of the proposed new supplier against the existing suppliers checking for duplicates
SLM uses fuzzy logic to return lists of suppliers that match based on spelling, address, city, etc. Vetting is quick and accurate
is routed according to CAT code assigned to supplier
CyberSecurity Questionnaire is reviewed (if applicable)
If approved, supplier is advanced to Round 2, if not approved, an existing supplier is used

19. Ameren Justification…
Functionality Areas
Supplier On-boarding
Round 2 (Currently under review for improvement)
Supplier is re-contacted by clerks to fully complete their profile online
Supplier added to supplier master by AP
Information augmented by Purchasing
Information certifications are uploaded and approved (if needed)
Tracked certifications are uploaded and approved (if needed)
Supplier diversity qualifications are uploaded and approved (if needed)
CyberSecurity Questionnaire is attached to supplier record (if needed)
Supplier is approved and enabled for use in Oracle.

20. Ameren Justification…
IT Interest
Capital Investment
IT keen to implement
GL to go live on (JUL 2014)
Fully regulated utility
Rate recovery cases go before state PSC
Capital intensive
Capital expenditure more readily enters rate base
SLM completely new functionality to Ameren
Presence of SLM allowed IT to capitalize the upgrade of EBS

21. Upgrade to 12.1.3 SLM Overall Ameren Experience…
Roughest in our history with Oracle
Underestimated impact at Ameren/supplier user level
One round of testing less than usually done
Many more user impacting problems
PDF forms not working
Purchasing forms functionality not working
Litany of problems, all resolved now, but some took months.
SLM Overall
Difficulty implementing the two round approval loop process
Underestimated the volume of new supplier requests
RFI update form facing suppliers not working properly, intermittent problems
Login problems on supplier end

22. Ameren Experience… Insurance Certificates Other Certifications
Functionality worked as planned
Capability to build and run a data load program
Separate from SLM but promising for mass update
Manually entering insurance information
Maintenance is up to date with little if any backlog
Other Certifications
Paper files to convert
Much data entry to accomplish
Online functionality works as expected
Backlog is worked by clerks and also by interns as we hire them for summer, Christmas break, etc.

23. Ameren Experience… Supplier Diversity CyberSecurity Attachments – OK
Promises a large upside for this small user community
Use of supplier facing forms for self update still having problems
CyberSecurity Attachments – OK
Standard attachment dialog used
Notifications preparation and grouping for communications all working as expected
Initially worked as planned.
With the recent RUP’s & switching to Exadata, the functionality is somehow disabled – SR with Oracle filed.

24. RUP’s…
Comprehensive Roll Up Patches were implemented spring and early summer 2014.
Extensive testing was done
Exadata servers were implemented
Oracle General Ledger went live
SLM suffered some technical and process setbacks as a result of this implementation
We re-evaluated the two cycle process and eliminated the initial supplier contact for supplier update. This would’ve happened regardless.
Supplier grouping and function was somehow disabled around the time Exadata became part of the topology. An SR with Oracle was created.

25. Questions…?
Chris Nelms M: