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Eric Scott Custom Products is a company that's eager to change with the times. Until just a couple of years ago, the St. Genevieve, Missouri-based firm focused on manufacturing high-quality personal leather goods and molded business accessories. Today, Eric Scott is less of a leather manufacturer and more of a business solutions provider, offering its clients a diverse array of manufactured products, design development, importing, fulfillment, and automation services.
Eric Scott has a well-deserved reputation as an innovator. In the mid-1990s, for example, the company abandoned its traditional assembly-line approach and switched to cellular manufacturing. The method calls for teams operating in cells of four to eight people, working on projects that may require many dozens of steps to complete. Team members are cross-trained, rotate jobs frequently, and take ownership of the completed product. Today, as it continues to shift toward new products and services, Eric Scott is blazing a technology trail in Web services.
Joe Young, Eric Scott's director of information systems, says Web services technology allows the company to communicate with customers and vendors more efficiently and effectively.
The Web services tie directly to supply chain management. With our customer-focus strategy, we need to be able to provision critical information, such as shipping dates, delivery dates, shipping methods, package locations, and so on. Being able to provision that through the Web on a 24/7 basis has really become critical for the operation.
To reach his goal, Young turned to software from Made-2Manage, an Indianapolis-based business software vendor. Eric Scott uses the Made 2Manage Enterprise Business System, which includes M2M ERP, an enterprise resource planning product; M2M VIP, an enterprise portal; and M2M Link, a Web services connectivity product that features the Web services support provided by the Microsoft .NET Framework. EDI, XML, and flat-file communications are supported.
The M2M VIP portal relies on XML and SOAP to provide Web-enabled communications services. M2M VIP offers access to critical back-end information and processes, giving customers and vendors immediate self-service capabilities. With M2M VIP, there's no need to rewrite back-office applications, or maintain duplicate sets of data. The technology provides secure Web browser-based access to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
We have the Made 2Manage Enterprise Business System as our back-end ERP system. We also have a Web front end that information is provisioned through. So, on the distribution side, if we ship an order at 11:00 A.M., for example, and someone wants to learn about that order's status at 11:05 A.M., she can log on through a simple Internet connection and visit our Web site to see if the order has shipped. The system provides a connection to UPS WorldShip that makes it possible for customers to place and track orders from beginning to end.
Nearly all customer and supplier communications can now be accomplished through the Web site, says Young.
They go to our portal. Inputting a secure user name and password gives access to a specific Web page for each company and user. They can then click on the order section, look at a particular sales order, and find out whether or not it's been shipped. They can also take the UPS tracking number, which is populated in the system, and connect to UPS World-Ship, pop it in there, and track their package. Users don't have to place a phone call to a customer service representative, send an e-mail, or wait for information—they just go to the Web site and view whatever they need to know.
The system also allows Eric Scott to accept customer orders. The orders can come in via EDI. Once placed, the orders are scheduled for manufacturing and shipment. All critical information is made available to customers via the portal in real time.
Orders can be placed through M2M VIP, using either our part number or the customer's own part number. Because each item is identified to a specific customer, a user only has access and can only order items that are specific to his operation.
Thanks to the excellent administrative tools built into M2M VIP, we can pick and choose what users get to see on their menus. To us, this flexibility is vital. As everyone knows, no two companies are the same, and different users within organizations have various needs. This goes hand in hand with our customer-focused strategy.
M2M VIP has proven to be a crucial element in Eric Scott's Web services infrastructure, says Young.
We see it as a kind of all-functioning, universal portal that lets us offer our customers just about any service they need. M2M VIP has a simple, clean, Web-based interface. But the beauty of this offering is the back-office integration. Certainly, for manufacturers there's a high cost to develop this kind of back-office integration. Made 2Manage has written this piece, which is really what makes M2M VIP shine.
The system also supports a variety of data exchange formats beyond EDI.
Most of the businesses we deal with provide us information in many forms other than EDI. We didn't want to leave any customers or vendors out of the picture. Supply chain management and vendor-managed inventory capabilities were some of the issues we considered early in the design process.
Our system allows us to tell a vendor, "We need X amount of feet of leather in this color immediately.'' That vendor can then come in and say, "This is how much this supplier has on order with us, and this is where they've got it scheduled to be delivered.'' The vendor can even give us more detail, suchas, "It looks like the supplier is running a little low, so perhaps we should confirm the order and maybe go ahead and make a shipment ahead of schedule.'' All of this puts more eyes on the situation; it gets everybody into the ball game.
M2M VIP also provides document-sharing and collaboration capabilities. The software allows Eric Scott to exchange "virtual design'' documents with customers, enabling them to easily review and reuse past designs. The software also provides a record of design development, including which alterations were made when and by whom.
We have a document repository in which we can place just about any kind of document. The repository has areas that are specific to each customer. We can share Excel documents, Word documents, CAD files, and a variety of other materials.
Tracking functions and other management features help Eric Scott managers and customers keep firm control over various documents.
If we put an Excel file out there, for example, we can initiate several types of actions from that file. Any time a change is made to the document, an e-mail can be automatically sent out to notify all of the file's users. The document is also associated with discussion threads and an online history. Files can also be posted as read-only documents to prevent accidental changes. Different user access levels are managed from the administrative side, so there's always full control over the environment.
The system replaced a patchwork of older technologies.
While we still use EDI, conventional e-mail, faxing, and phone calls—the traditional methods of conducting business—Web services are enhancing our company and our customer and vendor relationships.
A service server supplies the connection between Eric Scott's systems and the Internet, says Young.
The link is SSL-encrypted at 128 bits. There's a .NET infrastructure, using SOAP and XML, that talks to our back-office system and transitions the information from our back-end system through our server and back to the vendor or customer—whoever is calling for information from the Web.
Young recognized the potential of Web-based communications long before the technology went mainstream.
As far back as 1997, we knew that was where things were headed.
The increasingly global nature of Eric Scott's business was a prime motivator for adopting Web services, says Young.
If we're dealing with somebody who's on the other side of the world, it's a simple fact that we're not in the office when they're in their office. So, in the past, we had to work exclusively by fax exchanges or play phone tag. The portal effectively solves that problem.
Eric Scott's Web services system was created to handle everyday business needs, says Young.
Our primary focus was to create a very solid infrastructure that could run the business day in and day out and provide everyone internally with the resources they needed to have. Secondarily, we needed to make sure that we could implement the Web services when the time was right. So, that's what we really looked at and implemented.
We evaluated about a dozen different packages during late 1998 and early 1999. In June 1999, we settled on the Made 2Manage solution. One of the edges they had was covering over 80 percent of our total needs. We really didn't want to build a lot of customizations internally.
Made 2Manage provided the development support that helped Young see concepts unique to Eric Scott become reality. As it turned out, many of the features they needed were already built into the system.
We were able to give a tremendous amount of input as to what we needed from the system, what it would contain, and the functionality it would provide. Made-2Manage paid attention. They listened to us with an open mind. For us, that's the way the system was developed and rolled out.
The vendor brought Young and his team into the software design process.
I actually got to speak with a lot of the folks who were developing Made 2Manage's Web services. They didn't have them yet, but they were coming shortly. Made 2Manage followed through on everything they said they would provide.
We implemented the accounting side of the ERP system in October 1999, and then we turned the rest of the system on in January 2000. We went cold turkey; we didn't run dual systems. For our particular situation, we decided that we had to look at the logistics of keeping up with two different systems and how practical that was going to be. For us, it was not going to be practical. So, we ran just the new Made2-Manage system, and I can honestly sit here today and say, we really had no significant issues.
Young feels that the key to a successful Web service implementation lies in careful planning.
Planning and execution is critical. If the planning is done well, and the plan executed with dedication, the rest of the puzzle tends to take care of itself. Then, if a few snags do show up, you won't find yourself putting out so many fires that it becomes overwhelming.
Once the planning was completed, system deployment went very quickly, says Young.
There were a few kinks to work out. But, for the most part, it only took us about a week or two to get everything in place. That's in spite of the fact that we were still working out the system's logistics. That was a few years ago, in the early days. Today, it only takes a matter of hours to implement the M2M VIP services. It takes hardware at our site, for example, to actually run the Internet information server. As a result, there was a lot of logistics juggling involved in the rollout—a lot of things that had to be worked out. This is normal when you are a beta tester or early adopter. But we were actually pleasantly surprised that everything went so smoothly.
Young believes that the greatest resistance to Web services comes from the unrealistic promises of software vendors.
A lot of people are still leery of Web services. Expectations are really pumped, and they're disappointed when a product fails to live up to its unrealistic promise. I think that leaves a bad taste for a while.
That's where our relationship with Made 2Manage succeeded then and continues to succeed today. They provided exactly what was promised. They're also continuing to support the technology and are helping it to evolve and grow. This has been a major effort on their part.
Young says he had some fears about being an early Web services adopter. Most of his concerns, however, revolved around potential time constraints, not the technology itself.
You always have concerns, because it's something that's going to take a chunk of time from your internal IT staff. Since we have a pretty small staff, shifting to a new technology can really have an impact on daily operations. If you're spending a lot of time on this, then you don't have the ability to cover other important bases. That was our concern. On the other hand, we've never been unduly fearful of time demands, because if it takes a Saturday or Sunday to get the job done, we do it.
But Young says his fears began to fade away shortly after deployment.
Our fears were silenced after the first couple of days, because that's when a lot of the catastrophic sorts of things that could happen—like trying to run something and it toasts your server or corrupts your data base—would likely occur. Those sorts of things never happened, however. One always has to have some kind of contingency planning against the worst-case scenarios. We did that. But, fortunately, we didn't have to use those plans.
Young believes that Web services are destined to become a key and virtually universal business technology in the very near future.
There are still people who have to be convinced, but the trend toward Web-based communications is growing. It's actually invading some of the old standards, like EDI. For now, though, we're supporting EDI, XML, and other technologies through our portal.
Looking into the future, Young says he's eagerly anticipating new Web services technologies.
We're always looking at ways that we can better serve our customers. One of the things we'll definitely be looking at is continuously implementing the newer kinds of technology. There's nothing wrong with the older versions, but we just believe developing the newer technologies will make for a smoother transition and a better overall integrated operating platform.
We're always looking for ways to give information to whoever needs it—whoever is in contact with our business. We're always taking a look at that and evaluating what we need to incorporate.
Like many early Web services adopters, Young believes that the technology is beneficial. Yet putting a finger on a precise ROI is difficult, since most of the benefits are in the hard-to-measure areas of productivity and customer satisfaction.
I don't have any figures, but I do know that the number of phone calls we receive has been greatly reduced. That's because answers can now be obtained through the Web. We've been able to utilize staff in other areas, just because we don't have to personally answer every single question for our customers.
We love talking to customers and vendors, but we don't want them to be forced into a situation where they have to call us or e-mail us just to get some information. Additionally, there's the flexibility. If a customer has a question at 5:00 P.M. on a Saturday and the information is attainable via the Web, he simply goes and gets it. He doesn't have to wait until Monday for an answer. There's also an enhanced return to our vendors, thanks to our adoption of vendor-managed inventory. We want to make it easier for them and easier for us. It's hard to put a value on all of that.
Young offers some final words of advice.
I take the same approach to Web services that I do with any sort of business situation: Don't rush in and jump off the deep end without doing some homework. It's worth the time and the effort to go and learn about Web services. Once that investment in time has been made, the true worth of the system can be evaluated. If the technology fits a need, a better plan can be constructed, offering a better opportunity for a successful implementation.
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