Profile: eCommerce / eBusiness Solution Client: Motorcoach Industries (MCI)

One of MCI’s customers, New Jersey Transit, wanted their repair facilities to be able to order parts securely via the Internet, view status of orders, and generate reports. There are 30,000 to 40,000 parts. They needed six “on demand” reports ranging from Fill Rate Performance to Credit Card Reconciliation reports. They wanted to have these reports e-mailed to them. Cat Logistics was retained to outsource all of their warehouse operations. Because Cat Logistics primary software is SAP and MCI’s is APlus, they needed a way to have messaging between the two systems real-time. All warehouse functions would be performed by the SAP system with messaging originating from the APlus system.

Solution:

Using IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite, we built a complete shopping cart system. With IBM WebSphere Payment Manager, we built in the credit card processing they needed to order the parts online. Using IBM’s MQ Series, we linked the two systems together, enabling a seamless pass through between the APlus system and the SAP system.

Via the internet, New Jersey Transit can now pick parts from catalog drill downs and receive real-time pricing. This pricing is also based on quantities and or contracts that are tailored specifically to a New Jersey Transit site. They are able to check inventory levels at all MCI locations, enabling them to come up with accurate forecasting.

IBM’s Payment Manager provided the secure payment processing along with giving them access to the six key reports they needed.

Several MQ Series programs and utilities were built onto the APlus system at MCI to assist with the management of the MQ Series Messages. Some examples are: a utility was written that allows the user to scan messages with a search string. Another program was written to allow users to copy messages from one Queue to another for back-up and recovery purposes. evolveIT wrote all of the interface, providing the complete solution.

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