ESAB
Microsoft’s BizTalk & Host Integration Server helps successfully integrate
data between IBM AS400 and external vendors.
ESAB was founded by Oscar Kjellberg in 1904 based on his successful method of coated
electrode welding. The company has lead the welding industry in engineering and
innovation since then. Today ESAB is the result of a 1989 union of industry leaders:
Alloy Rods Corporation, L-TEC Welding & Cutting Systems, All-State Welding Products,
ESAB Automation and ESAB Welding Products.
In 2006, the ESAB group, owned by Charter plc, had sales of £828.4 million and employed
more than 6,700 persons worldwide. Over 100 years after the company was founded,
ESAB serves a global market worth around ten billion dollars each year. The group
is organized in the regions Europe, North America, South America, Asia/Pacific and
India. ESAB is represented in almost every country by subsidiaries or agents. Sales
and support is established in 80 countries and there are 26 manufacturing plants
across four continents.
“Microsoft’s integration platform allowed ESAB to quickly provide a
trading partner integration service with no custom coding and minimal development
effort.”
– Rich McCraw, Innovative Architects
Overview
- County or Region: United States
- Industry: Manufacturing
- Customer Profile:
ESAB, headquartered in Florence, SC, produces consumables and equipment for virtually
every welding and cutting process and application. More than 100 years of continuous
research, development and manufacture have made ESAB the world leader in welding
and cutting and also an international supplier of products, know-how and services
that none can match.
- Business Situation:
ESAB needed a way to expose the price and availability of product information stored
in their AS400 to external customers through a commonly used welding distributor,
Computers Unlimited. Their main goal was to provide customers a low-cost method
to hook to the CU structure.
- Solution:
Innovative Architects leveraged Microsoft Host Integration and BizTalk Server 2006
to quickly integrate data services with the IBM AS400 and exposed a SOAP web service
matching the contract defined by an industry standards group to accept price and
availability in real-time. The end result required no change for CU and allowed
ESAB to become the first welding manufacturer trading partner to supply real-time
information through a seamless web service interface.
- Benefits:
• Delivers open, transparent services.
• Cuts implementation and operational costs.
• Microsoft Integrated Platform
• Greater business intelligence, better decisions
• Increased year-on-year Web site sales
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Case Study
- Situation
ESAB North America, a subsidiary of Anderson Group Inc., needed to expose the price
and availability of product information currently stored in their AS400 to their
external customers through a commonly used welding distributor information system,
Computers Unlimited. Computers Unlimited, built an XML based web service using the
SOAP standard, to provide price and availability back to their screens/platform.
The ultimate goal of this project was to provide customers a low-cost method to
hook to the CU structure. ESAB tried to be the first welding manufacturer to complete
this trading partner integration scenario and had little success trying to build
this without an integration toolset. The ESAB team understood web services when
they were integrating to their own systems, but had some difficulty talking back
to the Computer Unlimited systems.
- Solution
For this solution, ESAB worked with Innovative Architects, a Gold-Certified Microsoft
partner. Our teams leveraged the Microsoft Integration Server Solutions (Host Integration
and BizTalk Server) to quickly integrate data services with the IBM AS400 and CU.
The solution utilized data level integration (DB2 stored procedures) with the AS400
to query for pricing and availability in the existing internal system. Our team
exposed a SOAP web service matching the contract already defined by an industry
standards group to accept Price and Availability requests, access the AS400 systems,
and generate the response with real-time pricing and availability information. The
end result was an implementation which required no change for CU and allowed ESAB
to become the first welding manufacturer trading partner to supply real-time information
through a seamless web service interface. Benefits As a result of the new infrastructure,
using Microsoft BizTalk, Host Integration, and SQL Server, ESAB and their customers
can gain instant access to valuable business data. Not only does this mean they
avoid the time-consuming task of compiling data, impacting their day-to-day productivity,
but it also ensures they can make timely business decisions, driving better growth.
In addition, this solution provides a consistent technology platform to scale and
utilize for future ESAB integration scenarios.
- Benefits
• Open, transparent services
• Cuts implementation and operational costs
• Microsoft Integrated Platform
• Greater business intelligence, better decisions
• Increased year-on-year Web site sales
- Software and Services
• Microsoft Windows Server
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft BizTalk Server
• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft Host Integration Server
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