IBS and Bang & Bonsomer have good chemistry with integration systemCustomer Story When Bang & Bonsomer decided to outsource its warehousing, it needed two good
partners – one to take care of the warehouse, and the other to manage the flow of
information. Company background
Bang & Bonsomer is one of Finland’s leading chemical distributors. It started with a bang in Helsinki in 1927. In 1993 Bang & Co. merged with another Helsinki based operation and together created Bang & Bonsomer Oy.
The product handled by Bang & Bonsomer is organic speciality chemicals. The company has a presence in eight countries with thirteen offices in addition to the Helsinki head office. With the expansion in Finland, plus that in the Baltics and Russia, Bang & Bonsomer has become one of the leading distributors of speciality chemicals in the former Soviet Union.
Bang & Bonsomer employs 260 people with annual sales in excess of EUR 138m.
Business issues
With over 500 suppliers and many thousands of customers, Bang & Bonsomer needed to stay in control of its business. The transport of chemicals requires solid professionalism. A combination of full container lots, fast transit times and the rigorous transport regulations for chemicals are just some of the daily challenges faced by the industry.
Transport volumes; especially between Western Europe and the former Soviet Union have tripled over the last few years but Bang & Bonsomer has been able to successfully negotiate better transport prices. This has allowed the company to maintain a competitive edge, while creating added value for its customers.
Issues with the company’s old warehouse also had to be resolved. The area around the old warehouse had seen residential development, which created both environmental and safety concerns. In addition, Bang & Bonsomer’s expanding markets outside Finland provided another reason to rationalise and modernise its warehousing operations. The location of the existing warehouse failed to provide good connections to Russia and other countries.
In order to improve service and overcome existing problems Bang & Bonsomer, decided to outsource its warehousing operations to a third-party and to find an IT partner to help manage the flow of information.
Solution and capabilities
When the decision to outsource its warehouse operations to John Nurminen Oy was taken, the management team had only a few months to find the right partner to help create the system information flow. After a rigorous search of the market, the company decided to purchase IBS’ flexible integration tool. IBS Integrator would be used as a message-oriented B2B solution between the John Nurminen system and Bang & Bonsomer’s existing supply chain application, also supplied by IBS. One of the main reasons for this choice is IBS Integrator’s facility to support XML communication, which was a requirement by John Nurminen.
Once a customer service rep has entered a sales order into IBS software, IBS Integrator sends detailed information about it to John Nurminen. When Bang & Bonsomer buys chemicals, it sends advance information about the goods to John Nurminen. When the shipment arrives, John Nurminen unloads the cargo, stores it and sends a receipt acknowledgement to IBS Integrator. In total, there are six different messages, which are sent and received. From product information to reception note and shipment acknowledgement - and the warehouse receipts for all these.
IBS Integrator is a powerful tool for systems integration, data management, data replication and synchronisation. The new system provides seamless communication between the company’s third-party warehouse and head office in Helsinki and was up and running in just three months.
From the outset, the target was to have a fail-safe follow-up mechanism for all messaging that takes place between Bang & Bonsomer and John Nurminen. At the Bang & Bonsomer end, this was achieved by using a small database to store all messages and by building distinct database views of the transactions that have and do not have matching response messages.
Once the B2B solution was successfully implemented, Bang & Bonsomer and John Nurminen have agreed that using IBS Integrator, a simple web page will be created, allowing John Nurminen to check and agree on the status of the transactions. In reality this means the original database will now serve as a shared database to control the communication of these two parties.
Benefits and value
The IBS integration solution has contributed to Bang & Bonsomer becoming one of the leading distributors of speciality chemicals in the former Soviet Union. Process efficiency has dramatically improved along with the real-time, faster process of business transactions that has reduced the risk of errors.
With IBS Integrator in place, Bang & Bonsomer and John Nurminen now avoid performing the same work twice, cutting the risk of errors in half. IBS’ batch number tracking capability also saves time and money, eliminating even more errors. This functionality has vastly improved the quality of reporting and accuracy of billing.
The next step will be to build a solution based on the previously exchanged messages where warehousing transactions and stock-keeping costs will be distributed to different departments more accurately. This will enable more precise warehousing costs and cost awareness distribution within the Bang & Bonsomer organisation. It will allow the company to get a more accurate picture of what a product costs and what amount is available rather than a total warehousing cost.
IBS Integrator will also address and automate other routine areas within Bang & Bonsomer. For example, the ability to receive a purchase order from Moscow directly into IBS software for Sales Order Management will mean less errors, faster processing and increased customer service.
With IBS’ help, Bang & Bonsomer is aiming to achieve a solid corporate structure with the emphasis on developing and coordinating report issues. This is because IBS Integrator is a rapid development tool and is the ideal platform for the company’s integration needs both now and in the future.
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