Open source has helped Estradas de Portugal, Portugal’s road authority, to reduce IT costs while increasing flexibility. EP is using Odoo, an open source solution for management assets. Odoo is combined with a proprietary financial reporting system, and is used for managing the government-owned company’s tangible and non-tangible assets.
“This is a solid business case that other public administrations should seriously consider”, says Luis Antunes, Managing Partner at ThinkOpen Solutions, an ICT service provider based in Lisbon (Portugal). “Switching to Odoo for enterprise and asset management will save them a lot of work, by sharing and reusing Odoo-based business applications.”
EP manages and maintains Portugal’s road infrastructure, including bridges and tunnels. The company has been using open source asset management since 2013, implementing OpenERP, renamed Odoo in May 2014.
Portugal’s road authority began using the open source solution after verifying functionality, says Antunes, and following an integration test with the proprietary enterprise management solutions already in use at the EP. This was followed by a request for tender, for services for the open source solution. ThinkOpen was selected to make necessary changes and adaptations, and integrate the solution with the proprietary, database-driven business applications.
Excellence
In February, ThinkOpen published a case study, quoting Carla Pires, project manager at EP’s Information System Department. “The Odoo Asset Management System implementation project respected, with a degree of excellence, the defined technical and functional requirements, as well as the planned cost, investment and schedule. Our degree of satisfaction with this project was, and still is, very positive.”
“After the initial data import, every asset that is acquired by the company is now registered on Odoo”, ThinkOpen writes. This makes it easy to identify which asset belongs to which department or cost centre. The software also allows monthly accounting updates in the proprietary financial system.
The company hopes that promoting EP’s use of Odoo will convince others, says Antunes. “We’re now in talks with municipalities that are noticing the advantages of open source.”