Systems Integration

Problem

The customer, a Biotech Manufacturing Concern, has multiple computer systems that do not talk to each other. Their web site (LINUX) takes on-line orders for custom bio products.  These orders are then emailed to their operations system (custom built and based on Oracle).  Next the Operations system produces an order ship ticket that is used by the accounting department to produce an invoice (Solomon – MS-SQL) and the shipping department interfaces with the shipping software system to create the shipping label and dispatch the package. 

This process flow happens hundreds of times per week.  Previous in-house attempts to integrate these systems failed.   One significant reason was the lack of source code to the company operations systems and the accounting system which prevented direct database updates by integration processes.

Additionally the orders coming from the web could easily exceed the operations systems requirement of only processing in batches of 96 or less items at a time.

 

Solution

 

The AdvanTec solution was to intercept the email, preprocess it to update a tracking monitor (MS-Access front end on an MS SQL Database) for overall system management) and to re-package the web-originated orders into bite size pieces of 96 or less (Exchange Server - VBScript).  Email, other than web-based orders, is redirected to an error mailbox to prevent attempts at processing non-orders. The existing shipping tracking interface (Visual C++) was enhanced to recombine split orders, update the system management monitor, and prepare an import file for the accounting system to batch process as new orders.

This streamlined integration process now automatically handles web orders directly into the operations system, and upon entry of shipping information (notification of shipment) release the invoice data to the accounting system for billing, virtually eliminating human intervention in all but exception cases.

Subsequent refinements have been to add additional functionality to the web order interface to capture PO, credit card and additional product options that will automatically be fed to the accounting and operations systems.

 

Products & Services

 

MS Exchange Server – VB Script	MS-SQL
MS- Access	Visual C++
Linux – PERL Web Scripting