Chicago Rawhide Vendor Managed Inventory Case Study

Overview

Chicago Rawhide Services (CRS) is known as an innovator at using information technology in the manufacturing industry. In 1999 Solvtech was contracted to produce a web based Vendor Managed Inventory system to allow vendors that were not participating in EDI transactions to participate in VMI. Chicago Rawhide is a division of SKF, an international manufacturing conglomerate. The goal was to produce a system that acts as an Application Service Provider (ASP) to the divisions of SKF.

Currently Solvtech is in the process of a joint venture to provide the fourth version of the system as a commercial product.

Starting with requirements gathering, prototyping and moving through three versions Solvtech has provided a high level of productivity. The high level of productivity was possible by using Solvtech's proprietary web application framework and a Rapid Application Development methodology. The approach produced results at a fraction of the time and cost of what other options were capable of delivering.

The internal CRS/VMI system was featured in the 2001 International Quality & Productivity Center conference on Vendor Managed Inventory.

Key aspects of the CRS/VMI system are:

• Context sensitive help screens.
• Fast HTML Graphs.
• Web based administration including tiered security roles.
• Dynamic views based on users' privileges.
• Usage accounting to allow inter-division billing for usage of the system.
• Database driven configurable color, graphics and text messages to allow customization of the interfaces including internationalization for each division.
• Automated import and export with the mainframe MRP system through a secure transition server to insulate the mainframe from potential access over the Internet.