DOWN AT THE WAREHOUSE

A&I Products, a Rock Valley, Iowa-based manufacturer and reseller of tractor and combine parts, started to open up its legacy AS/400 inventory and order entry applications by using a leased line to connect the system to three of its warehouses. The warehouses entered orders electronically via terminal emulation through COM ports on their PCs to the AS/400 and provided inventory status to corporate headquarters.

The process worked well, but it was expensive. “We planned to give more warehouses online access, so we had to find something more cost-effective than leased lines,” recalls controller and IT manager Jerry Wynia.

After researching the subject, Wynia decided to use ADVANCED BusinessLink’s BusinessLink/WEB and BusinessLink for JAVA to connect A&I with each of its 12 warehouses. The warehouses needed only a Windows 95-based web browser (either Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) and an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

The biggest challenge was dealing with warehouses in remote areas. “Sometimes, it was difficult to find a good ISP for them,” Wynia reports.

All the configuration work was done at A&I’s headquarters. Each warehouse would send Wynia a PC, he would upgrade it to Windows 95, install the dial-up software for the local ISP, set up the printer configuration and ship a configured system back to the warehouse.

The web-based access saved money over the leased lines. “It cost us $1,500 a month in leased line costs to connect only three warehouses,” Wynia recalls. “Now, we pay just $500 a month to link all 12 warehouses.”

He has since extended the program to provide online access to A&I’s sales reps. “Sales reps can retrieve all their reports over the Internet using their own laptop and desktop PCs,” he says. “That’s been a tremendous help to our salesforce. Before, we had to continually send them stacks of paper reports, and it took one person from one to three days to produce and mail those reports.”

Eventually, A&I plans to switch its warehouses over from the current Java web-enabled system to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), to make the system faster and more flexible. By the end of June, it plans to upgrade to ADVANCED BusinessLink’s Strategi product.

“HTML will tie up fewer resources on the AS/400,” Wynia explains.

By the permission of Beyond Computing. Copyright © 1998 IBM magazines in affiliation with Forbes Special Interest Publications Group, all rights reserved. (http://www.beyondcomputingmag.com)