Intermodal Marketer Extends the Use of Existing Systems to Accommodate AS/400 Web Server Technology New System Helps Customers Better Manage Their Transportation Needs Founded in 1971 as a shippers agent, the company has since grown to become the largest intermodal management company in North America and one of the largest logistics providers in the United States. Headquartered in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, the $1 billion company went public in 1996. It currently employs 1,200 professionals located in 35 offices nationwide who service the company's 12,000 customers. The company prides itself on providing its customers with solutions that are designed to maximize the distribution pipeline and minimize the cost of transportation. As a non-asset based company, the company can be objective and customer-centric, and offer its customers optimal solutions to meet their transportation needs. They are continually striving to find new and better ways to add value to its services. It expanded beyond its core competency of intermodal truckload transportation to providing a full range of logistics solutions, including logistics management, distribution and international shipping. The company recognized that in order to expand its capabilities, its next step would be to increase the level of customer service and their roles. Meeting Old Information Requirements With New Methods To relay information regarding the status of load shipments, the company relied on daily updates sent via facsimile to customers. However, this method proved constricting since it provided only a glimpse of the shipment at a certain point in time. If customers needed further information or more frequent updates, they had to call the customer service department. The Companies customer service representatives spent much of their time answering such calls instead of focusing on value added solutions to customer inquiries. Our client wanted to provide its customers with real-time access to shipment status information. It was important that customers be able to get the data whenever they needed to, instead of at a designated time. In this way, the information would be of benefit to the customer. According to Robert Maro, vice president of information services, "We started out slow by providing a tool on our website that customers could query to determine the status of a single shipment. It was our introduction to web-based applications." Although this was an improvement over the fax-based system, it proved cumbersome to many customers. In order to get the information they wanted, customers had to input the order number, bill of lading and equipment identification numbers for each load that was being shipped, and then the system would give them the latest status on the shipment. To some, this was not a problem. To others who had fifty to one hundred loads in transit at the same time, identifying each load independently was a troublesome option. The company had proved the value of a web-based application. What took hours or a day, now took minutes. Now it was time to improve it. Choosing a partner to assist in the change The company engaged Braxton-Reed, an information systems consulting firm that works with mid-sized companies and divisions of Fortune 1000 companies. Braxton-Reed provides services ranging from management consulting and planning to providing supplemental staffing for projects involving new technologies or the maintenance of existing systems. With sixteen years in the business, Maro knew what needed to be up on the site. "When it came to choosing a partner to help us achieve our goal, we went to Braxton-Reed. We knew the talent of their people from previous projects and what their capabilities are. We didn't ask who they had to work on this project with us. We told them which individuals we wanted to help us." Braxton-Reed provided technical consultants, network and communications experts, and business process knowledge. The company had maintained a long-standing relationship with Braxton-Reed. Maro explained, "Their technical skills are difficult to find in other places. I would say that is their strongest suit. They are communication experts. They understand how to make two systems effectively communicate and exchange information seamlessly. That's part of the problem we had with this system. We had to get the data over to the web server." "Partnering with a consulting firm is a delicate balance," added Maro. "Braxton- Reed took the guesswork out of our projects with a seamless approach to understanding our business process models and technical requirements. Creating the vision A project team was formed with representatives of each organization, and they began to scope the project. The first challenge the group confronted was that the web site was housed on another company's server. In order to build the new system, they had to secure its own server. The next challenge was to create a conceptual design that included the objectives of the project, the desired functionality of the system, potential obstacles that would need to be resolved, and the type of server that would leverage the companies existing applications. One of the first obstacles the team faced appeared in conjunction with the existing transactional production system where the data resided. It was not a system that could be operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It had to be taken off-line for four hours every night for data replication. Therefore, one of the criteria for the web server was that it could interface with the production machine, replicate the data between the two systems, and provide data accessibility with quick response times around the clock. Based on those parameters, the team selected the IBM Model S-10, an AS/400 web server product that optimized the existing system and provided real-time accessibility. The Web server was designed to protect customer data from intrusion by physically isolating production data from the Internet. This was accomplished by replicating the legacy data real-time to the web server. The web server in turn manipulates and displays the data to the Internet. The final task was to design the application on the web server side of the system. Several prototypes were created, each exploring a different view, prompting, information display, size and type of screen, and other variables. The goal was to create a functional application that is user friendly, and provides individuals with the information they want when they want it. The Company identified customers who were interested in test driving the new system and providing input on its usefulness. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with only minor modifications resulting from the input. The Company, however, remains low key regarding the system's success. "We are just trying to solve our customers business problems and make it easier for them to do business with us," said Maro. And in the process, the company has extended its existing system to employ web technology, evolved the IT infrastructure with proven technology, improved the efficiency and problem solving capability of the customer service representatives, and made it easier for customers to manage their transportation needs. Anticipating the future How will the system be evolving in the future? The possibilities are great. Perhaps customers will place their orders directly over the web. Maro takes it one step further, musing, "So maybe we open the system to customers we might not have today who are small shops that want to do business with us but its just too cost prohibitive. They could contract with us on a discounted basis where they can get their freight moved if they are willing to input the orders themselves through the Internet. They could save money because we could reduce costs. That's a win-win situation where everyone benefits." Although the idea is just speculation at this point, Maro knows what he does see in the companies future. "Our goal is to deploy more web site applications. In the future, there will be a concentrated effort to move in that direction. From an IT perspective, that's where the future is. That's where there are efficiencies to be gained for all people." ©1999, 2004 Braxton-Reed. All Rights Reserved.