No brakes on iSeries automotive exchange – through integration

Before joining, the company had 11 head office staff dedicated to processing orders and handling enquiries. That's now fully automated and online 24/7, including weekends. Factors place orders online via TecCom, they feed straight into Brake's stock system in real time, invoices are generated and pick notes sent to the warehouse. Similarly, enquiries are self-served on the secure connection, with auto linking into Brake's ERP. Brake had been looking to do this for some time, but decided to wait for a de facto industry standard. As Brake managing director Stephen Willis says: ''Before TecCom, there was no collective agreement. As a supplier, we had to deal with all the formats our customers wanted. It was expensive to integrate to these different systems. Now TecCom has been endorsed by A-Connex and the IFA, the vast majority of our customers are following one process." Getting on board, however, required tight integration into Brake's Geac System21 ERP system, and the company used middleware company CSG (Computer Software Group) to get there. System21 runs on the IBM iSeries (AS/400), and CSG specialises in iSeries integration. CSG, which owns the Talent CRM (customer relationship management) suite, also owns the Wiz400 middleware suite, now dubbed Talent e-business suite, and that's what's been used here. Last year, CSG also acquired JBS Computer Services, the iSeries manufacturing and distribution applications firm, and Springstone Software Services, providing SME business solutions also on iSeries – so there's a lot of iSeries knowledge. That's important when connecting to a substantial web trading exchange: it's not only about automating orders and parts ID, stock and pricing enquiries, but despatch advice, invoices and the rest – all reliably and in real time. Because TecCom is big business – with big names like Robert Bosch, Continental, Delphi, Siemens, Federal Mogul, Valeo and 70 other suppliers plus 5,000 client-side High Street businesses and wholesalers connected. CSG provided Brake's connection straight into System21 from TecCom's standard inter-system e-business platform. Says Willis: "By adopting TecCom and Talent we have made the link to A-Connex and our iSeries stock system easy. This is the way forward for our industry." Work on the web interface took 10 weeks from initial concept to go-live, and Jason Ellis, product director at CSG reckons that subsequent System21 users could now expect a five-week turnaround. Ellis concedes that the timeframe would be longer on, for example, an SSA BPCS system or a JDE OneWorld (now under Oracle) implementation, but makes the point that iSeries applications are meat and drink to his company. As exchanges and portals like TecCom grow in other sectors and with specific supply chains – following the lure of lower costs, automated processes, more business and reduced errors – it's as well to know a route to getting connected.