Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is a technology-driven company that infuses engineering with imagination. L&T offers a wide range of advanced solutions, services and products. Their annual revenues are in excess of $5-billion. The Electrical and Electronics Division (EBG) manufactures and markets switchgear, Motor Control Centers, switchboards, energy meters, petrol dispensing pumps and electronic control & automation systems, medical equipment and tooling solutions.

L&T has over 300 active suppliers and traditionally communicated with them using a manual process of phone, fax, email and courier mail. Buyers had no way of knowing if their purchase orders were received. Shipping notices received by fax or email had to be entered manually into the SAP system. Reconciliation of orders, receipts and payment was slow and time consuming. Buyers were spending too much time chasing information and not spending enough time planning materials, ensuring on time delivery to the factory and evaluating supplier performance.

L&T needed a supplier management solution that would integrate their worldwide supplier base, automate routine procurement functions, provide for prompt payment, be easy and fast to implement, work seamlessly with the existing SAP applications and utilized Lotus Notes for email and workflow.

eProcuremate by Xtenza Solutions was selected by L&T and the first implementation, including backend integration with SAP, item master mergers, data migration and custom reporting and documents was completed in 10 weeks. As a result:

• L&T no longer sends paper purchase orders, RFQs or material receipt notices.
• Purchase quote comparison among multiple suppliers has decreased from days to minutes.
• Duplicate data entry has been eliminated.
• Automatically generated reminders and follow-up emails free buyers from routine tasks.
• Suppliers are able to obtain real time information on the status of PO's, deliveries and payments by accessing eProcuremate directly.
• Critical reports on vendor performance, vendor quality ratings and vendor cycle times are available on demand.

Given their overwhelmingly positive experience with eProcuremate, L&T next implemented eSalesmate by Xtenza to manage the entire customer engagement process. Sales enquiries, quotes, customer requirements, order entry, inspections and fulfillment are now automated and available worldwide to every member of sales, marketing and field engineering teams. Xtenza integrated workflow processes with Lotus Domino and automated the data exchange with the existing SAP applications.

AT&S (Austria Technologie and Systemtechnik) develops and makes complex printed circuit boards (PCBs). Annual revenues are $715-million. Its fabrication plants in Austria, China, India, and South Koreas supply PCBs to OEMs and contract manufacturers who produce everything from cellular phones and handheld electronics to autos, aircraft, industrial, and medical equipment. AT&S clients include General Electric, Honeywell, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, and Siemens.

An AT&S factory was making more than 25 international shipments daily to customers worldwide. Generating the export documentation and tracking shipments manually was time consuming and led to many inefficiencies and delays. Reports from multiple shipping/forwarding agents had to be consolidated by hand into a spreadsheet for tracking purposes. This process consumed 4-5 hours every day. Analyzing shipping charges from multiple carriers to multiple destinations was even more difficult. AT&S was unable to leverage negotiated shipping rates to their best advantage.

AT&S needed a comprehensive logistics solution that could be implemented quickly and integrated seamlessly into their existing SAP 4.0 enterprise applications and utilize Lotus Domino for workflow and collaboration tasks.

eLogixmate from Xtenza Solutions was selected for implementation. After a trial period for evaluation, AT&S and Xtenza were able to go live with the new application within 10 weeks. Xtenza was able to provide SAP and Domino integration, data migration and customized shipping documents and reports.

As a result:

• AT&S no longer sends or receives paper shipping documents
• Shipment tracking and export license reconciliation is available on-line
• Daily shipment reports from multiple agencies are available in seconds from eLogixmate
• Real time shipping information is available on line for both company employees and shipping agents
• Duplicate data entry for SAP applications has been eliminated
• Logistics managers have been freed from time consuming work through the automated reminder feature of eLogixmate

Based on their success with eLogixmate, AT&S plans to implement the Vendor Managed Inventory module of Xtenza's eProcuremate application for their customers and to track finished goods inventory at various warehouse locations worldwide.