IT Client Engages ASG to Develop MRP System

Industry: Information Technology
Location: Ontario, CANADA

The Challenge
This IT firm wanted a sophisticated Material Requirements System (MRP) to track its multitude of operational functions (supply chain, works-in-progress, replenishments, demand simulations, order requirements, shortages, standing balances, etc.) and to produce reports for daily review. They turned to the expertise of ASG's Applications Integration AI team.

The Solution
After carefully reviewing the client's system requirements and specifications, the AI team recommended using a combination of ASG-Safari UDMS 4GL and UNIX scripting to build the system. The data marts, report marts, and finalized reports were developed with ASG-Safari/UDMS 4GL; the functionality for updating and printing these reports was developed with UNIX scripts, which were then put in a crontab file to prepare for automatic execution.

Ensuring that the MRP system would reliably run reports every morning, the AI team exhaustively tested and timed the processing required to populate the data marts/report marts. The fully developed MRP system utilized 23 data marts/report marts and produced four major reports. What was once a complex and time-consuming data-gathering effort for employees is now completely automated. By using UNIX scripts, the company was also able to leverage its existing IT investment without incurring added expenses of new software. After adopting this new system, the company was armed with information deemed critical to making sound business decisions.