responsive to customers, and the accounting department can create financial codes
in multiple currencies.
As BREG and HOPPE have learned,
mature software applications, when properly deployed, can help midsize companies break free of the reactive cycle of
continually responding to changes in the
business. Step one is automation. Step
two is improvement. For example, after
getting the basic JD Edwards functionality
in place, HOPPE took the opportunity to
convert its production lines to the kanban
method, which helps orient its production
runs to actual customer requirements.
Meanwhile, BREG leveraged a centralized database of business data to get a
real-time handle on the business. Managers
now know precisely how much inventory
they have throughout the United States,
Mexico, and Europe, and how many products they are shipping each day. “We’re not
making mistakes on the front end when
we make commitments to our customers,”
enthuses Romeo. “That’s a real strategic
advantage for us in the medical device
market, where companies are not distinguished by products alone but by their
servicing capabilities.”
Romeo cites his firm’s mobile supply
chain functionality, warehouse management system, and demand planning
software as examples of how technology
has given them a competitive edge and
allowed them to gracefully scale the business. “Oracle E-Business Suite has been an
extraordinarily powerful solution for us,”
he sums up. “We now understand customer needs and can set the right direction
for the future.”
Today, about 550 BREG employees
are users of the Oracle software, and 25 people are managing
its information systems. They are using the Oracle applications in conjunction with Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real
Application Clusters in a Linux environment. “Linux surpassed
our expectations,” notes Romeo. “It gives us 24/7 capability with
minimal maintenance. We’ve been able to keep our hardware
investments to a minimum, and we can easily add processors to
our database cluster.”
HOPPE’s revenue exceeds €300 million, and the company
has a more-consistent, cost-effective set of business practices across its factories and distribution centers in Germany,
>>SNAPSHOTS
BREG
www.breg.com
Location: Vista, California
Annual revenue: US$500 million
Employees: 1,100
Oracle products and services:
Oracle Clinicals; Oracle E-Business
Suite, including Financials, Distribu-
tion (Order Management, Shipping,
Inventory Management and Mobile
Supply Chain); Oracle Database 10g,
Oracle Real Application Clusters
Other products and services:
Consulting services from Abaris
HOPPE Holding AG
www.hoppe.com
Location: Müstair, Switzerland
Annual revenue: €302 million
Employees: 3,000
Oracle products and services:
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, includ-
ing Financial Management, Logistics,
Manufacturing; Oracle Database
Other products and services:
Consulting services from Full Speed
Systems AG Group
Italy, the Czech Republic, the United
Kingdom, and Switzerland, as well as in
the United States. Mayr says its Oracle
system enables the company to react
quickly to customer requests. The system
coordinates financial, logistics, and manufacturing processes to drive operational
efficiency, and it supports multiple currencies to simplify accounting practices.
Although the implementation took more
time and money than he expected, Mayr
says the system paid for itself in three
years by reducing costs throughout the
company. “We now have higher planning quality, better coordination, and
better financials, with profitability by part
number, by customer, by month, and so
forth,” he says. “Information helps us run
our company much better than we were
ever able to do before.”
INDUSTRY FOCUS
According to Oracle’s Keever, Oracle
Accelerate has been optimized for a wide
range of industries, from aerospace and
defense to consumer products. Because
Oracle understands the business process
flows of these industries, customers are
free to focus on running their businesses
instead of on how to make information
systems work together. This is precisely
what motivated Hunter Douglas to adopt
Oracle applications for its Australian
operations. Hunter Douglas is a manufacturer and distributor of window
furnishings and architectural products.
The company has manufacturing and
assembly plants in Sydney and Adelaide,
and sales offices in Brisbane, Hobart,
Melbourne, and Perth.
Hunter Douglas’ enterprise software
journey began in the late 1990s when IT pros began to con-
front Y2K issues. Management wanted to take the opportunity
not only to fix potential problems caused by the date fields
in their legacy information systems, but to deploy modern
software applications that would improve the business going
forward. Hunter Douglas also wanted to create more-efficient
order entry and inventory control procedures for its high-
growth product lines.
After reviewing the available business applications, Hunter
Douglas decided to implement JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
and JD Edwards World applications. The linchpin of the new
Hunter Douglas
www.hunterdouglas.com.au
Location: Sydney, Australia
Industry: Industrial manufacturing
Employees: 400
Oracle products and services:
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, including
Financial Management, Foundation,
Fixed Assets, Distribution Manage-
ment, Manufacturing Management;
JD Edwards World Manufacturing
Management
