LaBarge uses Attunity Stream to increase responsiveness, compete more effectively and maximize existing assets
LaBarge is a recognized leader in the electronics manufacturing services industry. LaBarge builds high-reliability hardware and systems that support critical functions where durability and peak performance are vital including military aircraft, radar systems, satellite launch vehicles, airport security equipment, glass container fabrication systems and oil field tooling.
CHALLENGES FACED – DELIVERING REAL-TIME ACCESS TO INFORMATION
LaBarge needed an easier way to access and analyze information held in its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system – a mainframe, terminal-based system with monochrome screens installed 20 years ago.
“Our ERP solution could be equated to a DOS-based system. It was not attractive and was frankly irritating to the eye,” explains George Hayward, director of information systems for LaBarge. “However, the core brains of the system still met our needs and we were capturing the data we needed to run our business. Our challenge was getting the data into the ERP solution efficiently and being able to get it out and analyze it effectively.”
The company reached a point where the inputs and outputs of its ERP system were preventing it from being competitive. LaBarge needed a real-time means of putting data in and out of the system in order to respond more effectively to customer requests.
While the ERP system supported the operational needs of the business, LaBarge wanted to modernize both its reporting capabilities and its user interface. The green screens were not only difficult to look at; the navigational capabilities were limited at best. LaBarge sought a solution that would redesign the ERP’s input screens to have browser-based functionality.
Running reports was another major pain point for LaBarge: these were printed on large column paper on big, expensive printers. The process was expensive and time consuming. As printouts would be completed at a separate location from where the task was requested, users would sometimes have to walk a quarter of a mile just to obtain the report. They would then need to scan hundreds of pages in order to find the data they needed.
As LaBarge uses a VSAM mainframe system, they were limited in their options to take advantage of modern reporting tools. So the company began to look for a way to mirror the data that was in its existing ERP system onto a SQL Server to enhance its reporting and analytical capabilities, save trees and time.
STRATEGY FOLLOWED – ATTUNITY DELIVERS REPORTS 200 TIMES FASTER
To increase its competitiveness, LaBarge now uses a solution comprised of three components:
- Attunity Stream
- Microsoft BizTalk Server
- Microsoft SQL Server
Attunity’s change data capture (CDC) solution, Attunity Stream, runs on the mainframe and knows when a data field has changed. It then grabs the changed data and uses BizTalk to transfer it off the mainframe onto a SQL server. Using Attunity, LaBarge now has all the data from its ERP system mirrored in SQL, which has made retrieving data from the system – as well as navigating through it – much simpler and less time consuming.
Now that data is mirrored, LaBarge no longer has to run reports on the mainframe. Instead, reports are run on the SQL server and because the Attunity solution works seamlessly with a browser-based solution, it enables intuitive, easy report generation on the front end in about 60 seconds – 200 times faster than the time it previously took.
“We recently took six old reports from the old system and re-did them with some modern tools against the SQL data that Attunity updates in real-time,” explains Hayward. “When our users enter data into our ERP system on the mainframe into those VSAM files, Attunity identifies the changes and carries that data across to a different server where we run SQL. Attunity has put an end to the days of waiting for reports to run on the mainframe, so we no longer have to wait up to three or four hours and walk to a separate location to obtain a printed report.”
Running reports was one of the most time-consuming activities when processing on the mainframe. Now that Attunity has taken the report-running duties away from the mainframe there is less demand on it, which has sped up all the other programs running on the mainframe. Other unrelated tasks running on the mainframe are completed in a quicker manner as well.
In addition, LaBarge is now able to sort and filter data in its ERP system in ways that were previously unattainable before – for example, sorting by date, postcode and so on. Attunity provides the data in SQL, so the company now has a front-end screen equipped with filters that users take advantage of to pick their report preferences. Results are displayed in a browser window making navigation and overall use of the system much easier.
BENEFITS REALIZED – LABARGE COMPETES MORE EFFECTIVELY WITH ATTUNITY BY ITS SIDE
When LaBarge receives a request for a proposal, the company relies on the data in its ERP system to generate time and cost figures for the job. By providing immediate access to that data, Attunity has enabled LaBarge to present proposals in a timely fashion, allowing it to compete more effectively against other contact manufacturing companies. Before Attunity was implemented, the process of gathering specific costs for items such as labor and inventory levels took no less than a week and sometimes up to a month. In addition to the sluggishness of the system, the project would require the attention of multiple workers for a long period of time.
Now with Attunity, LaBarge can have a proposal ready as early as the day it’s requested. In addition, by providing timely access to the data that calculates labor costs, LaBarge’s contract estimates are now more accurate, which has improved the company’s sales and profit margins. The increased ease of use that Attunity offers means that the person most qualified to analyze inventory levels can review the data without enlisting the help of multiple staff. In addition, as the data is now on SQL, there are other third-party tools LaBarge can use to analyze the data and report against it.
The most significant benefit Attunity has provided LaBarge is the ability to keep its existing ERP system, which saved the company considerable cost and risk in replacing such a mission-critical operational system. Aside from the expense of purchasing a new ERP system, Attunity saved LaBarge potential revenue losses that could have been incurred due to system downtime during the ERP system replacement.
“We didn’t need a new ERP system, we needed a solution that provided us with real-time access to the data it contains,” says Hayward. “Attunity Stream captures that data as it changes so we are able to extend the life of the software. We can now do business and communicate the way our customers expect.”
LaBarge believes its users will think the company has indeed installed an entirely new ERP system, as it begins its next phase of the project: using Attunity to marry disparate systems. For the first time, the bid system, sales system and ERP system will all be linked and data will be shared across the three systems.
For further information, please email marketing@attunity.com