.KEYWORD atomicski
.FLYINGHEAD LEGACY SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
.TITLE Integrating legacy applications with new mobile technologies
.OTHER
.SUMMARY How does a company move forward with new mobile technology while still taking advantage of its investment in legacy applications? This is one of the major concerns enterprises face when considering adopting handheld technology. We asked J. Sasidhar to shed some light on the issue. As President and CTO of Dharma Systems, a supplier of e-business integration technologies, he encounters companies in this situation all the time. Here he offers the example of Atomic USA, a ski manufacturer that was looking for a way to link up its proprietary Palm OS-based software to its AS/400 systems.
.AUTHOR J. Sasidhar
Most of the time, existing computer infrastructures within large organizations contain significant corporate assets, including the business rules, processes, and information required to run a business. Companies with significant legacy infrastructures should leverage these assets when pursuing e-business initiatives, such as the integration of Palm handhelds into the corporation.
Traditional integration methods require coding or interfacing at the application’s unique API (Application Programming Interface) level. This integration is a complex and tedious task for developers and increases exponentially as the number of legacy applications increases.
As the President and CTO of Dharma Systems, a supplier of e-business integration technologies, I encounter companies in this situation all the time. Consider the example of a company called Atomic USA.
.H1 Cross-country application
Atomic USA is the U.S. subdivision of the second largest ski manufacturer in the world. The company manufactures and markets alpine skis, boots, and ski bindings, as well as cross-country skis, under the Atomic brand. Atomic ski equipment is manufactured in Altenmarkt, Austria, and the company boasts offices all over the world. The United States headquarters are located in Amherst, New Hampshire. You can see some of their products in use in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A Skiers all over the world make use of Atomic ski equipment.
The company needed a way to improve efficiency by allowing its regional representatives to take orders and check order status and inventory while on the road. The IT department of Atomic USA developed a sales force automation application called ePad, shown in Figure B, for the Palm operating system. The ePad can be connected to a modem to allow Atomic salespeople to enter orders, check inventory, calculate rolling discounts, and transmit the information to an SQL (Structured Query Language) system housed in their headquarters.
.FIGPAIR B ePad allows users to check inventory, calculate rolling discounts, and transmit the information to an SQL system.
Before Atomic developed ePad, the mobile sales force had to either dial into the intranet or transmit weekly inventory and sales reports via fax. The process was tedious and paper intensive. The development of ePad allowed for streamlined administrative and sales operations.
.H1 No connection to corporate assets
While the application greatly improved efficiency in the field, there was no connectivity to the AS/400 systems in which critical customer information is stored. Orders collected in the field were printed out and manually keyed into an AS/400 system where credit worthiness was checked and an order confirmation generated. The manual order input for a single order could take up to 40 minutes.
The immediate problem was the drain on Atomic’s employee resources. The time spent manually typing in orders was becoming a liability. Accuracy was another big problem. Atomic offers its customers discounts based on over a dozen variables that are calculated using a complex formula. An instant connection between ePad and the AS/400 would reduce or eliminate the chance for human error and provide the accurate information to the salesperson’s handheld.
As I said before, existing computer infrastructures contain significant corporate assets. In this case, all the customer orders and case histories of Atomic’s customers were stored in the AS/400 systems.
Atomic USA’s IT staff originally planned to develop the software to connect the two systems themselves. They knew they would need to integrate the two systems without major reconfiguration of their back end. Deciding in-house development would be too time consuming and costly, they sought out software already available on the market that would allow them to connect the legacy system without a major overhaul. This is how I came to be familiar with the company, as they chose to go with our eUnify software.
.H1 Making the connection
The first goal was to bypass the manual order-entry procedure. In addition to the immediate priority of order automation, Atomic plans to increase functionality between ePad and the legacy systems and wanted to be certain that the initial solution they selected would carry over to future legacy integration endeavors.
"We were concerned about altering our IT environment and losing all the power and capacity of the legacy systems we had invested so much time and money in developing," said Mike Williams, IT Director at Atomic USA. "Changing the legacy system at all was a challenge and a risk because Atomic has so much information and reports, most of which are critical to our business processes. While we wanted to continue to use cutting edge technology to our advantage, we also wanted to make sure that any advances affecting our IT infrastructures were the right ones because we have so much riding on them."
The installation began in March 2001 and was completed in two weeks. At the end of the first week, the order entry was automated from the ePad. One problem faced was the slow data link that was available to access the AS/400. To overcome the problem, the second week was dedicated to increasing the performance of the integration layer by tuning the system. Once the tuning was completed, the response time for entering each order item was made to be less than a second.
The implementation process was completely behind the scenes. The systems were integrated so seamlessly that only the employees who were formerly responsible for typing in the orders have noticed a significant change in the systems. The sales force had already been using ePad systems, and the added functionality available through the integration was a welcome value-add that didn’t call for additional training.
.H1 Benefits of integration
Atomic has been aggressively rolling out new technologies to streamline its distribution and sales processes, such as the Palm OS-based ePad application. Now they have real-time exchange between the custom-designed ePads used by the field sales group and the company’s back-end systems. By bridging between the legacy systems and the front-end applications, Atomic has experienced improved sales and customer service efficiency and functionality. This exchange of business information eliminates previously used manual processes within Atomic USA, which was limiting the efficiency of ePad.
Some of the features and benefits realized by Atomic include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Real-time access from ePad to AS/400;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Access to real-time inventory, customer history, and credit status;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Lower costs by reducing order processing time and manual errors;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Continued leveraging of legacy investments;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Real time access to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for inventory catalog, pricing, discount calculation, ordering, and order status.
.END_LIST
The key point is that Atomic is now able to take advantage of its investment in legacy applications while still moving forward with new mobile technology. Atomic is saving money through increased productivity and has saved on the cost of revamping its entire database. The sales force is now able to access customer information on the spot and offer discounts–which makes customers happy. It’s too soon for Atomic to tell how much the system will impact sales figures, but the company is definitely realizing benefits already.
As your company pursues e-business initiatives, such as the integration of Palm handhelds into the corporation, it’s important to keep in mind how you’ll continue to leverage your legacy applications. Hopefully Atomic’s example has given you some valuable food for thought.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Atomic, visit http://www.atomicsnow.com.
For more information on Dharma Systems technology, visit http://www.dharma.com.
For more information on AS/400, visit http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO J. Sasidhar is President and CTO of Dharma Systems at http://www.dharma.com.
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