PIAB Turns to IBM Cast Iron Systems for Fast ERP Integration: Integrate in Days, ROI in Nine Months

We certainly didn’t have months to get this done. We had to get it up and running within about 30 to 45 days.”
– Greg Anderson, Global IT Manager, PIAB

ERP Systems Do Not Talk

When the Swedish company PIAB decided to implement a global just-in-time inventory model, it had to find a way to integrate its various ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems which were unable to communicate with each other. “We have offices in about 18 different countries, and each of them have individual ERP systems,” said Greg Anderson, Global IT Manager for PIAB. “The biggest issue we had is the amount of double-entry that was required once an order was placed. In the UK, for instance, there was a lot of manual work being done to process an order through the local ERP system and into our main system in Sweden, and also to transfer the information back.” The new model required a more efficient approach to order processing.

Based in Taby, Sweden, PIAB provides industrial vacuum solutions for material handling and factory automation. It serves a variety of industries including food and consumer products, automotive and electronics.

The purpose of the just-in-time inventory model was to streamline PIAB’s supply chain, reduce costs and improve customer service. “We were changing our warehouse model to go from smaller supply at local offices to centralized supply and faster delivery to the customer. So instead of having large bulk orders, we were changing to smaller, direct-ship customer orders,” said Anderson. To handle this larger volume of orders, PIAB needed to automate its order processing more fully.

The different ERP systems in its country offices were the result of organic growth and development. As the company grew and opened offices in new geographies, the local teams put in place business systems to meet their local requirements. Over time this led to a patchwork of ERP systems, many of which could not communicate with each other or with headquarters.

When the directive came down from the company’s board to integrate the ERP systems, the IT department was immediately under time pressure to complete the project. “We certainly didn’t have months to get this done. We had to get it up and running within about 30 to 45 days,” he said.

IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud Integration

PIAB evaluated multiple integration technologies and vendors before choosing IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration. It considered EDI (electronic data interchange), but found these solutions were relatively difficult and costly to implement for its environment. Other technologies tended to specialize in a single application or process, such as a technology that integrated very well with Salesforce CRM, but lacked open and flexible connections in other areas. “Cast Iron seemed to have the most connectors. They advertise quite well on their website to show how open the connectivity is. And the biggest thing is, we were under a deadline to put this system in place. Cast Iron had the tagline of ‘integrate in days,’ which was basically how much time I had,” said Anderson.

For the initial phase of the project, PIAB integrated its ERP systems in the UK and France with its headquarters in Sweden. It used an IBM Cast Iron Physical Appliance that performs the translation between the systems. “It is a complicated process that we have – checking stock, classifying orders as to whether they need further handling, how people are notified about what to do, whether an order is valid in a particular location. The appliance handles quite a bit of logic,” said Anderson. “We brought in a technical consultant from Cast Iron to work with us here. We wrote the integration project in about two weeks. There was a little delay when one of the local developers was writing the web services interface at the end point level. But everything went really well. The surprising part was how well it worked and how well it has run since then, considering how fast we had to implement it.”

ROI in Nine Months

Anderson is pleased with the outcome: “We saw a nine-month ROI on this particular project.” Cost savings came from fewer hours spent entering data, less inventory in the supply chain and reduced local warehousing and office space. Customers benefit from faster delivery. The speed of implementation was especially important in this case. “It could easily have taken nine months to a year to try to program something internally, which would have slowed down our process of adopting this model.”

“I’m confident of how reliable Cast Iron is. I don’t have to worry about it failing, which is good because I don’t want to get a call at three in the morning, waking me up in the middle of the night because things are not working in Europe.”

Since the initial project, PIAB has rolled out additional integrations with WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration, such as connecting Salesforce CRM with the ERP system for its office in Germany. Now sales personnel can see all of a customer’s history and detail within a single tool. These follow-on projects have an even faster ROI because the integration appliance is already in place and PIAB has gained skills in creating integrations using Cast Iron.

“So we have continued to see benefit from Cast Iron, even more than our ERP systems. I’m really happy with the choice we made,” said Anderson.

 Copyright © 2011 Apropos LLC. All rights reserved.

Grigg Brothers Turns to VOIP Service from ATC to Reduce Phone Costs and Improve Communication

I wanted to simplify the sheer number of points of contact and make it easier to communicate.“
– Jared Grigg, Director of Communication and Information, Grigg Brothers

Toward a Streamlined Phone System

Grigg Brothers wanted to streamline and consolidate its corporate phone system. Its existing system was an assortment of phone lines and services for its headquarters and operational office in southern Idaho and seven branch offices around the U.S. Each office in Idaho supported several employees. Most of the branch offices where field technical reps were based had two phone lines – one for voice and another for fax – plus an Internet connection and mobile phone. “Communications and technology can be a big line item on the budget,” said Jared Grigg, Director of Communication and Information. “The reps were turning in expense reports with fax numbers and landlines and mobile lines, and I said, this is too much. This can be considerably more condensed. I wanted to simplify the sheer number of points of contact and make it easier to communicate.”

Grigg Brothers is a manufacturer and wholesaler of specialty fertilizers for the turf grass industry, including golf courses and sports fields. The company’s flagship products are liquid foliar fertilizers that are absorbed through the leaf tissue of a plant instead of through the roots. Nutrients applied in this way are almost fully absorbed, even during stressful times like summer heat, and create healthier turf. Grigg Brothers’ foliar fertilizers are also more environmentally friendly because they avoid toxic soil buildup, leaching and runoff.

In 2005, when Jared Grigg first started considering options for a new phone system, the owners of the company expressed skepticism about voice over IP (VOIP). They wondered whether it was mature and robust enough to support a business. Because of this and his prior experience managing a Nortel Meridian phone system, Grigg decided to focus more intently on traditional key telephone systems. He dialogued extensively with a local reseller, received several proposals and even proposed a system to the board of directors. The system offered greater flexibility and better features, but ultimately the directors turned it down because the cost was higher than what they were already paying and exceeded the technology budget.

Meanwhile VOIP technology was improving and gaining acceptance in the market. “I decided to look at the cloud again because more and more solutions were becoming available,” he said.

His first step was to deploy an Internet fax service. This service automatically converted incoming faxes to PDF format and sent them by email to the recipients. Everyone in the company received a new fax number. Technical reps who spent much of their time traveling could receive faxes immediately on their PC instead of waiting until they came back to the office. Outgoing faxes could be scanned in to a PC and emailed to the fax service for delivery. The electronic fax service cost considerably less than the dedicated fax lines it replaced.

A Serendipitous Opportunity

In 2007, ATC Communications, the Internet and phone service provider for Grigg Brothers headquarters, acquired a VOIP solution provider called Nextphone. Here Grigg saw an opportunity. One of his concerns with a VOIP solution was that if a problem arose, the VOIP provider might blame the Internet service provider and vice-versa, leaving the user caught in the middle. “If I went down this road, if I backed ATC with their new acquisition, then they would be responsible regardless of whether it was a phone problem or an Internet connectivity problem,” he said.

The ATC Nextphone service had the features they were looking for:

• Hosted IP phone service that all offices around the U.S. could access over an Internet connection
• Programmable “find me, follow me” feature for incoming calls that can, for instance, simultaneously ring a desk phone and cell phone, or one then the other, before going to voice mail
• Four-digit dial connecting everyone in their geographically distributed organization as if they were in the same building
• Internet fax service with solid features and technical support
• Unified messaging that sends voice mails and faxes to a user’s email inbox
• Conferencing capabilities so Grigg Brothers can set up and control its own conference calls
• Web portal for centralized programming and administration
• Automatic call routing to cell phones in case of local power outage
• Significantly lower cost than their existing phone system

This set of capabilities combined with Grigg Brothers’ established relationship with ATC made it attractive. “It was the perfect solution,” said Grigg. The company deployed Nextphone across all its locations. Branch offices received Linksys PAP2T Internet Phone Adapters. To access the new phone service, they only needed to connect the adapter to the Internet and plug in any standard telephone handset. If a technical rep preferred to rely exclusively on a cell phone, the system could be programmed to route all incoming calls there. The company also standardized on Google Apps Premier, so users can access email, voice mail and faxes anywhere using a Web browser.

Headquarters initially experienced intermittent call quality problems, much to Grigg’s chagrin, though his strategy of using the same VOIP and Internet service provider proved advantageous. Grigg was concerned that VOIP would get a black eye because the owners were already apprehensive. But he believed the hosted service was solid and worked with ATC to address the underlying network quality issue. While on the verge of deploying a second DSL at headquarters and a dedicated switch for the phone system, ATC offered to try boosting the bandwidth of the existing Internet connection. “It automatically improved. I have not had a single problem since the day they did that,” he said.

In my twenty plus years of doing this, I have never been more synchronized across all platforms.”
– Jared Grigg

Less Costly and Easier to Support

As a result of switching to VOIP, overall communication costs fell by more than 40% in the first 12 months and have remained level. At the same time, the company streamlined the number of phone lines and points of contact and improved its ability to communicate and collaborate.

Grigg is also pleased that he spends much less time supporting this new phone system. He uses the Nextphone web portal to handle routine administration and support requests. In fact, the company’s entire IT infrastructure is set up for centralized, remote administration. “In my office I have several computers and monitors in a semicircle around me, and I am remotely connected to every single asset in the company – all desktop computers, all laptops and even some cell phones as we move to smarter phones. In my twenty plus years of doing this, I have never been more synchronized across all platforms,” he said.

Soft Phones for International Roaming

More recently the company started using soft phones for placing calls when outside the U.S. to expensive international roaming charges. Soft phone software runs on PCs and smart phones such as iPhone and Android. It lets users place phone calls through that device over the Internet as if they were at their office desk. It is another way Grigg Brothers is using VOIP to keep down communication costs.

 Copyright © 2011 Apropos LLC. All rights reserved.