Gates Rubber Automates Information Delivery

Charles C. Gates, founder of the Gates Rubber Company, likes to ask his managers to "throw their hats across the creek." The saying hearkens back to the Wild West, when pioneers would toss their hats to the other side of a creek as an incentive to cross. Throwing the hat depicted a solid commitment to moving forward.

So it is for the European operation of Gates Rubber Company, based in Brussels, Belgium, where information technology professionals are crossing the divide between Web technology and legacy databases. Gates is using WebFOCUS software from Information Builders to simplify information dissemination to its widely dispersed salesforce. Its new intranet reporting system eliminates manual report-distribution tasks and helps managers monitor the performance of their far-flung enterprise.

"Our sales information system is now widely used and our initial goal to replace about 30,000 annual hard copy pages with electronic reports has been achieved," reports Marc Windels, IT Director for European Gates Companies.

"The new reporting platform is helping to streamline Gates' planning, manufacturing, warehousing, and plant management activities, and enabling real-time information delivery to managers and sales staff working as far away as Denmark, Poland, and Russia," says Windels.

The new intranet-based reporting system is part of an ambitious strategy to modernize the overall information technology (IT) infrastructure.

Gates started in 1994 with a centralized information system for order cycles. The company had accumulated more than five years worth of European sales figures on an AS/400-based information system, yet only a few people could access the information for reporting or benefit from data analysis activities. Sales representatives, who are dispersed throughout Europe, had to contact headquarters regularly to learn about the status of their clients.

There had to be a better way. The information the sales reps needed was in the BPCS enterprise system, which tracked such important details as production planning and stock levels in seven factories around Europe. To access this data and put it into a useful form for managers and representatives, the company decided to expand its stalwart AS/400 platform with a SQL Server-based data warehouse and intranet/Internet applications on Microsoft Windows NT systems. "Information Builders' WebFOCUS became the application with which we could expand information delivery through this new client service platform," says Windels.

Real-Time Information Delivery

WebFOCUS helps organizations build and deploy Web reporting and transactional systems over intranets, extranets, or the Internet for production reporting, complex analysis, supply chain management, customer relationship management, and self-service application solutions. Its browser-based architecture is ideal for distributing information to remote users and mobile workers, such as the Gates field organization.

Gates also valued WebFOCUS for its comprehensive report scheduling and distribution capabilities. The flexibility of Information Builders' solution, together with its automation features, makes it ideal for accessing, retrieving, and distributing data around an enterprise.

IT pros used middleware software (now marketed through Information Builders' subsidiary, iWay Software) to simplify the process of extracting, transforming, and loading data from the AS/400 platform into the Microsoft SQL Server database. Once the data-access architecture was in place, they turned their attention to building reports for managers and sales representatives. By adding the reporting platform to existing back-office applications, a centralized sales database within the BPCS enterprise software system, Gates Europe achieved its goal of improving the productivity of its back-office support staff.

"Our objective was to use WebFOCUS to deliver electronic sales reports that would replace hard copy printouts and provide greater flexibility in presenting to the sales team," Windels explains. "Sales reps throughout Europe now can store, select, and obtain their regular reports with updated parameters. The system is used regularly by 120 field staff and we're currently taking over 10,000 inquiries per month on our sales database."

Improving Business Productivity

Web-based business intelligence, accessible via the corporate intranet, has had positive effects throughout the Gates organization – from managers at the local plant level on up to the senior officers of the corporation – cutting down on the time and expense associated with manual reporting efforts. "Information is readily available and less cumbersome to manipulate than before," says Windels.

Today, knowledge workers throughout the organization use WebFOCUS to help planners know what's going on in the plant. Users can select their own report criteria, analyzing everything from order status to manufacturing capacity and customer service levels for items such as ship-in time and ship-right quantity.

"What we have achieved with WebFOCUS is a number of customer pulse points that provide key performance indicators," explains Windels. "Managers concerned with open orders, customer service, and sales are making good use of the system. They obtain information easier, faster, and with less effort. That's why WebFOCUS has been a useful tool for our staff."

Gates credits Information Builders for having done a good job. "Information Builders helped us turn a pilot project into a mainstream information system," Windels concludes. "This kind of software helps us maintain our position as a progress-minded industrial leader in the automotive industry."