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OrganizationSteel Technologies is a steel processor with 24 facilities located throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

ChallengeProvide continual insight into processes to track operational and financial inter-actions with trading partners. Combine information from multiple data sources.

StrategyCreate function-specific data marts that combine data from multiple reposito-ries, build standard middleware layer to simplify EDI connections, and assemble concise, easy-to-read reports and InfoApps.

ResultsReal-time reactions to changes in fore-casts; better gauge of the company’s returns on invested capital; more accurate handle on current and pending opportu-nities; and faster installation of new trading partners with standard EDI interfaces.

Information Builders SolutionWebFOCUS Reporting Server, WebFOCUS Managed Reporting Environment, ReportCaster, iWay Service Manager, DataMigrator, Professional Services, and Education.

Snapshot

Customer Profile

Steel Technologies

Steel Technologies Controls Inventory With WebFOCUS and iWayInformation Builders’ Integration and Intelligence Products Help Steel Processor Manage Complex Supply Chain

The need to carefully track steel as it moves through the supply chain was one of the main factors that motivated Steel Technologies to acquire business intelligence (BI) and integration technology from Information Builders.

The eighth largest steel service center/processor in North America with 24 facilities strategically located throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Steel Technologies processes flat rolled steel coils from producing mills throughout North America to customer-specific thickness, length, and width tolerances for the automotive, HVAC, appliance, lawn and garden, agriculture, construction, office furniture, and consumer goods industries.

“Our customers expect to see an accounting of every pound of steel that we process, including scrap,” says Jim Honerkamp, chief information officer at Steel Technologies.

WebFOCUS iWay Software Omni

“We are a $2 billion company, and a large portion of our capital is tied up in inventory. We use business intelligence to keep a finger on the pulse of where our inventory stands at any point in time. We use integration technology to load our data mart and simplify our EDI connections.”

Honerkamp and his team worked with Information Builders’ Professional Services to create adata mart, several major BI applications, and dozens of InfoApps™ and reports. InfoApps are custom analytic apps built with WebFOCUS for a specific business area. These InfoApps will ensure that users are working in a unified environment with consistent, high-quality data. They used iWay Service Manager to create one common EDI platform, iWay DataMigrator to create the data mart,and WebFOCUS to establish a common platform for reporting and analysis. Champion Solutions Group, an Information Builders partner, assisted with the implementation.

Modernizing the Infrastructure With iWaySteel Technologies is adopting cloud-based infrastructure and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications for many critical business functions. Part of this modernization project includes replacing legacy EDI interfaces with new iWay interfaces.

“Before we implemented iWay, we had unique EDI maps for every trading partner,” says Honerkamp. “We were maintaining hundreds of maps, which made it difficult to respond in a timely fashion to new business requirements. We had a tremendous backlog of requests to add new trading partners.”

Steel Technologies now has one middleware backbone that sorts out all the variations of these many different interfaces, streamlining onboarding of new trading partners and simplifying maintenance of the middleware environment. “iWay has allowed us to really streamline our EDI processing,” Honerkamp adds. “So far we have migrated about three-dozen trading partners to iWay and each migration is getting easier and easier. Standardization saves time for the technology professionals tasked with creating trading partner interfaces.”

Steel Technologies also uses iWay to create secure transport interfaces with banking partners and SaaS providers including cloud-based HR and payroll systems. The IT team used iWay DataMigrator to create star schemas and data marts as well as to import data from a DB2/400 database on an IBM iSeries platform to a Microsoft SQL Server platform. They plan to use DataMigrator to also create data marts from Progress and Oracle databases.

Monitoring Business Operations With WebFOCUSSteel Technologies’ business users require current information relating to sales, purchasing, finance, and manufacturing. The company sought a BI solution to integrate disparate data and reduce the time between the identification of an issue and the decision to take action. “Traditional reporting tools like Crystal Reports and RPG programs could not deliver the information that we need, especially in an environment like ours where the data structures are less than ideal,” adds Honerkamp. “A BI solution, like WebFOCUS, was the only viable option.”

Steel Technologies now has three major WebFOCUS applications in production: Inventory Analysis, Return on Working Capital, and Sales Analysis. “We created a series of reports and InfoApps that keep our inventory at sufficient but minimal levels,” says Honerkamp.

“iWay has allowed us to really streamline our EDI processing. So far we have migrated about three-dozen trading partners to iWay and each migration is getting easier and easier. Standardization saves time for the technology professionals tasked with creating trading partner interfaces.”

Jim HonerkampChief Information OfficerSteel Technologies

InfoApps are highly interactive, analytic applications that support specific avenues of inquiry and decision-making. Each InfoApp allows business users to analyze data, answer specific questions, and solve unique problems. People with little or no technical skills can interact with these InfoApps and instantly get the results they need. They can select from five sort levels, each with 14 parameters.

The company’s main line of business often produces parts for multiple customers from a single coil of steel. Managers must carefully track the genealogy of that coil. For example, a 60-inch wide coil of steel might be split into three 20-inch segments to fabricate parts for air-conditioning units, disc brakes, and saw blades. This division relies heavily on the Inventory Control application to account for every finished part and every pound of scrap. WebFOCUS combines data from several different repositories into concise, easy-to-read reports that quickly and accurately provide inventory positions by raw part number, end customer, and finished part number.

“Our inventory control application allows managers to react quickly to changes in forecasts by identifying excesses or shortages of material,” says KC Hayden, a senior business analyst at Steel Technologies. “They can detect cases where they need to reduce or cancel incoming orders, thereby reducing raw material carrying costs. They can also increase or look for alternate raw material sources to cover material shortages, ensuring that they are able to meet each customer’s changing demands.”

According to Honerkamp, Steel Technologies spent 15 years trying to create an inventory control application, but was never able to develop it properly until the company acquired WebFOCUS. “Previously we had to combine data from various sources into a data warehouse and then report from there,” he notes. “Being able to use WebFOCUS to create complex reports was one of the key reasons we were able to avoid a major ERP implementation. WebFOCUS provides critical information that our legacy reporting environment could not provide.”

The Return on Working Capital application enables finance officers to gauge the company’s returns on invested capital by customer, plant, sales manager, region, and other variables. “WebFOCUS enables us to enhance our customer portfolio and focus on areas of needed improvement,” says Derek Kelty, a senior financial analyst at Steel Technologies, who commonly uses the report to manage the company’s cash position.

What are InfoApps?InfoApps deliver highly interactive analytic content such as data visualizations, charts, graphs, and reports to users through an easy “app store-like” experience. Instead of learning complex tools and worrying about data preparation, users can tap into InfoApps to serve themselves and quickly get answers and insights from relevant data, right when they need it. InfoApps make it easy for non-technical, mainstream users to get and analyze information on both web browsers and mobile devices.

The Sales Analysis application empowers more than 100 salespeople and their managers with real-time information about pending opportunities, current sales activities, and forecasted sales. Honerkamp’s team developed business reports and InfoApps for Sales Forecasting, Contract Items, Daily Sales, Outside Processor (OP) Transfers, Processed Receivers, and Return to Stock.

Users can also choose how the reports should be displayed (HTML, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF). They have the option to schedule most reports, so that they are e-mailed in a timely manner. Some reports have built in security. For example, with the Open Orders Report, salespeople can only see their own data while sales managers can see all of the data pertaining to their teams. Business analysts also use InfoAssist to create ad hoc reports, along with ReportCaster, to schedule and distribute reports automatically.

“Our users are very pleased with WebFOCUS,” concludes Judy Abramson, a senior software engineer at Steel Technologies. “Parameterized reports and InfoApps make it easy for them to find exactly what they are looking for. They get the information immediately – no more waiting for printed reports.”

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