Synchronizing a hosted Procurement Solution with the Entire Business
A mid-size Life Science manufacturer decided on implementing a hosted procurement solution, or software as a service (SaaS), which afforded the opportunity to trade capital investments in hardware and software with monthly service payments.
The project became more complex than expected since the company’s ERP software needed to remain the system-of-record for purchasing and payables, and there was no standard way to connect it with the hosted procurement system.
The Ceiba Solutions team used its middleware technology to easily connect and synchronize the two systems by:
- Creating an access gateway into the ERP procurement module
- Developing a data import and export process, connected with the hosted procurement software
- Translating data into a format that the ERP software could recognize
- Automating some of the user procurement functions in the ERP system to match the new procurement model
After only 2 months of effort for the entire project,the solution went live in April 2009 with the following results:
- Purchase orders created in the hosted procurement system get automatically posted in the ERP Procurement system, maintaining the ERP purchase orders as the system-of-record
- Vendor data is accurately mapped between the two systems
- The purchase requisitioner is automatically notified by email when a shipment is received
- The entire flow of data back and forth between the two systems can be monitored and managed, with any failures being immediately caught, reported on and fixed.
As an additional benefit, the entire process is managed remotely by the Ceiba Solutions Managed Services team. The customer can focus on its core Life Science business and rely on outside experts to monitor and support their new integrated system.