| |
|
|
Success Story
Calmar Deploys MitsWeb to its Worldwide
Manufacturing Facilities
After years of successfully using MITS for sales analysis, Calmar looks
to MitsWeb to extend OLAP/BI into every department in the company
The Company
Calmar is a worldwide manufacturer of pump dispensers, nozzles, fine mist
and trigger sprayers for the personal care, cleaning, chemical, and
pharmaceutical markets. The company was founded more than 50 years ago with
the introduction of the world's first all plastic pump sprayer. In 1998,
Calmar was acquired by the French company, Saint-Gobain, to complement its
existing specialty packaging businesses.
Saint-Gobain, one of the world's hundred leading industrial corporations,
operates in 46 countries worldwide and fields a workforce of over 170,500.
Its revenue in 2002 was Euro 30.3 billion, equal to approximately 35.1
billion U.S. dollars.
As one of Saint-Gobain's 850 companies, Calmar has six locations: four in the U.S. and two in Europe (Spain and Germany).
Its headquarters is located in City of Industry, Calif.
The Circumstances
Calmar has been a MultiValue database for over two decades and been on
mvEnterprise for the last eight years. Four MultiValue Intel-based SCO/UNIX
systems are used at Calmar locations: three in the U.S. and one in Germany.
Tom Phan is a senior systems analyst with Calmar in the City of Industry
headquarters, but after 14 years with the company, is a "Jack of all
Trades." He is part of Calmar's international Information Technology (IT)
operations, which includes a team of ten: five located in the City of
Industry facility and an additional five spread throughout its other
plants.
Calmar has been using the application from Dataworks (now called Epicor)
since it first migrated to a PICK (MultiValue) system about 20 years ago,
but has since bought the software license to the source code. Phan
explained: "We've modified and enhanced Dataworks so much, it doesn't look
like the original solution anymore. It is technically an in-house developed
software application."
Phan said that because Calmar is an international company, it has critical
needs for on-line data analysis among its various sites. "Each location
runs independently and the data is consolidated to our headquarter location
nightly. I'd been searching for a way to efficiently organize and
distribute our data for years-and the MITS OLAP product came through for us
to provide many answers for our company."
MITS, the acronym for Management Information Tool Software, is an Online
Analytical Processing and Business Intelligence (OLAP/BI) suite of products
designed to gather, manage, distribute and analyze data for improved
strategic and tactical decision-making.
The Search
About five years ago, Phan and his colleagues realized they needed to
implement a business intelligence (BI) solution company-wide. "We wanted to
find an online product that senior management could easily use and with a
simple click of the mouse, see facts and figures like sales and profits,"
Phan said. "We began by looking at different data mining and data
warehousing solutions like Cognos, but they were way over our budget," Phan
said. "Then, we brainstormed for about a year to come up with an idea
in-house, but couldn't come up with a solution."
Although Phan had spent many years researching a data analysis solution,
once he found MITS, he moved fast. He remembers, "I was scanning a magazine
at lunch one day and spotted an article about MITS. Five minutes later I
was in my boss's office proclaiming that we needed the money to purchase
this product.
"I couldn't believe there was a product like MITS already out there for
MultiValue systems, and I was so enthusiastic," he continued. "I called
MITS that day, got the quote immediately, and had the money within a week."
This happened in 1999 and Calmar became one of the first customers for
Management Information Tool's MITS product on mvEnterprise. Three years later, with the
assistance of Technical Resource Group (TRG), Phan's group became a beta
site for the new MitsWeb product, and today Calmar is launching MitsWeb to
its worldwide sales force.
The Solution
Calmar put MITS into production almost three years ago and today Phan
claims, "I know MITS like the back of my palm!" Although a long-time and
very satisfied MitsView user, Phan said he was so eager for the MitsWeb
solution that he obtained the funds prior to the release of the product. "I
told the people at MITS to let me know the minute the Web product was done
because I had the money and was ready to buy it!" he said. Calmar installed
the product earlier this year.
Because the U.S. operations had been successfully using MitsView for a few
years, Calmar decided to test MitsWeb with its European operations first.
"When I gave the MITS demo to our European sales and management staff, they
were very excited and enthusiastic and wanted it immediately," he said.
With the help of TRG (www.picktrg.com), a MITS value-added reseller and
support company located in Costa Mesa, Calif., Phan was able to keep the
European group happy and implement MitsWeb in a short amount of time.
"Thanks to TRG's support and training, the MitsWeb deployment was a breeze
and it only took me about a month to master."
With the success of MitsWeb in Europe under his belt, Phan said he is
targeting to convert the U.S. from MitsView to MitsWeb before summer. Today
there are approximately 40 salespeople and upper management using MITS in
Calmar's U.S. operations, and an additional 20 in Europe. His growth plans
for MitsWeb, however, will increase his number of MITS users greatly over
the next few years.
"A lot of people think that MITS is only for sales, but I say it doesn't
stop here. It goes much further than that," said Phan. Although Calmar's
main use of MITS has been for sales analysis, now that Calmar is
implementing MitsWeb, Phan said he will be bringing MITS' OLAP/BI
capabilities into every department in the company, including procurement,
preventive maintenance, assembly, accounting, and R&D.
"MitsWeb just makes my life a lot easier!" Phan exclaimed. "I don't have to
load MitsView on every PC, and that saves me a great deal of time. Also,
the MitsMaker GUI cube builder product makes the cube building much simpler
to do."
Phan also said MitsWeb is saving him time in training Calmar users.
"Practically everyone knows how to use the Web, so MitsWeb is just another
Web page for them to browse. So it comes with a fantastic, easier learning
curve.
"I actually don't train anyone on MitsWeb," Phan continued. " I set up the
data cubes, give them the User-ID and the password to log in, and they just
sit and click. I created a fact sheet and quick reference card that I send
to my users, and they are up and running. They don't bug me with
questions!"
Phan said the support from Management Information Tools has been invaluable
over the years.
"Words cannot describe how well the people at MITS have supported me," he
expressed. "They are professional, friendly, and knowledgeable. Anytime I
need them, they are there for me. There's no comparison between MITS and
other vendors in regards to support."
When Calmar purchased MitsWeb last year, TRG became the direct support
company for Calmar's MITS' implementation. "It's great to work with TRG
because they are a local company and always available," Phan said. "TRG is
a perfect fit for the MITS product, because its service is just as
excellent as that from Management Information Tools. The TRG staff provides
quality service and a professional attitude. The best part is, they always
deliver on time, follow up to make sure that I am satisfied, and ensure
that my projects are done."
The Results
Before installing MITS, Phan said he spent every Monday sending out a full
box of paper reports to salespeople and management. Now, he only prints
about 1/8 of that amount. "I would have 22 salespeople and eight managers
requesting reports on a regular basis-some wanted it sorted this way,
others sorted that way," Phan remembered. "This used to take up all of our
IT resources for other projects. MITS has given us more time to do other
assignments for other departments."
Has everyone accepted MITS as enthusiastically as Phan? Phan gave an
emphatic yes. "They have to accept it because we don't mail out the sales
reports anymore! They can only get the information from MITS and if they
don't use it, that's their business. I call it tough love!"
Bill Riley, a Calmar product manager based in Cincinnati, Ohio, accepts
Phan's "tough love" with open arms and said his biggest timesaving from
using MITS comes at year-end. "I used to spend days pulling YTD and
historical data from a myriad of sources, reviewing piles of green-bar
reports, and manually running the numbers," he explained. "Now with MITS,
all my reports are downloaded nicely into Excel and I can focus on my own
numbers, drill-down by customer or product, and quickly cull it down to the
most critical information."
He continued to say, "MITS is also a great tracking tool, because it allows
me to spend more time making sales calls and less time preparing reports.
It has become my one-stop source for quick answers and an overview of where
my customers are according to our budget, without having to pull data from
a so many different places."
Riley explained that some of his customers order products from numerous
Calmar plants, and before using MITS, he would have to spend hours
contacting each plant location to obtain the data and do the calculations.
With MITS, it takes just minutes to gather the same information. "I use
MITS before visiting clients to see where sales are with that customer
versus what we budgeted for them. If sales are up or down, I can drill down
to get the specifics and alter my sales call if needed. It looks like I'm
keeping my fingers on the pulse of their business!"
According to Phan, many more of Calmar's sales staff also consider MITS an
essential tool for reviewing their own sales data before going into
meetings with customers. "MITS is enabling them to talk more intelligently
with clients," he said. "And as I develop more cubes for more departments,
I see MITS continuing to help our company make more profit, and cut more
costs."
Although Phan won't call himself the "hero," he does admit that MITS has
given him job security. "I spend about 25% of my time on MITS, so that's a
big reason why I have a job here," he said.
|
|
|
|
Company Profile:
Name:
Saint-Gobain Calmar
Distinction:
Worldwide manufacturer of pump dispensers, nozzles, fine mist and trigger
sprayers for the personal care, cleaning, chemical, and pharmaceutical
markets
ERP Software:
Custom / Dataworks
Database:
mvEnterprise
MITS Value Added Reseller:
Technical Resource Group
Web Site:
www.calmar.com
|
|
|
