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Daily news and updates on Mobile computers, Handheld, Rugged, Wireless(Wi-Fi), GSM and GPRS enabled PDAs and Industrial computers brought to
you by Logistics Business IT Magazine the leading IT journal and website for manufacturing, supply chain and logistics in the UK and Europe.
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Philadelphia, PA & London, UK – 2nd April, 2008
Catalyst, a business unit of CDC Global Services, has announced that Kingston General Hospital in Ontario, Canada, has implemented a mobile warehouse and inventory control system based on Web Dynpro technology, part of the development environment of SAP NetWeaver®. The solution, which has been live since early January 2008, is part of the hospital’s overall SAP® upgrade and currently provides seven key transactions that integrate handheld Motorola Radio Frequency (RF) devices with the core SAP supply chain and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
As part of Kingston General Hospital’s update to SAP ECC 6.0, the organization also reviewed the peripheral systems that interfaced to the core ERP. According to Derrick Morey, business technologies manager for material management at Kingston General Hospital, this highlighted some important areas for improvement. “Our review showed that our existing bar coding system was rather antiquated and unable to meet the materials management demands of the hospital going forward. We decided to look for a partner that could provide the specialist skills needed to design, develop and support an advanced RF solution that integrated seamlessly with the SAP ERP.”
Kingston General Hospital identified Catalyst as the most suitable partner for this project. Derrick Morey explains, “Catalyst demonstrated its knowledge, capabilities and experience as a full service provider of fully integrated supply chain solutions in the SAP environment. We wanted to work with a company as a true partner, developing a mutually beneficial long-term relationship and Catalyst responded very positively to this. They were able to look at our requirement and recommend a solution that was best suited to our needs and based on the very latest SAP technology. They were also able to work closely with our own development team, sharing resources and expertise to design and deliver an excellent solution based on the Web Dynpro application.”
Mobile Web Dynpro is a flexible technology for developing mobile SAP transactions, designed to be executed on handheld terminals. It includes a Java-based toolkit that greatly reduces development time and provides flexibility in solution design.
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Catalyst and Kingston General Hospital have developed a series of seven transactions using mobile Web Dynpro that enable a range of key activities within the warehouse to be managed by handheld devices, fully integrated with the core SAP system. These transactions enable the efficient management of goods receipt processes and much greater management and visibility of inventory levels and stock movement. Further transactions add greater speed, accuracy and visibility to picking processes and cycle counting requirements.
Derrick Morey adds, “Even during the first few weeks since implementation we are seeing substantial benefits from having technicians connected to SAP through wireless networks. It allows them to stay out in the field, wirelessly uploading and receiving information, rather than having to return to a terminal to physically connect the devices to the network. This provides a lot more accurate, real-time information to be communicated directly to the users and allows them to handle goods receipts, picking and dispatch much more efficiently.”
Barry Blaskie, manager for material planning and distribution at Kingston General Hospital and the business process owner comments, “The increased visibility of realtime data also gives supervisors and managers much greater control over all aspects of warehouse and supply chain management. We can see the status of every order and stock line going through the system and can base re-order quantities and reservations on live, accurate information. This helps us to keep stock levels to an optimum level, which is an important benefit to us because space is at a real premium.”
Brian Thorn, vice president of sales and operations for Catalyst, comments, “We are pleased to be helping Kingston General Hospital realize its vision of utilizing and extending the functional reach of SAP at a world class medical facility. Catalyst specializes in working very closely with clients’ own IT resources. We aim to provide technical expertise and experience, to ensure our solutions and services deliver good value as well as advanced and specialized SAP implementation skills.”
Kingston General Hospital is continuing to develop the system and is working with Catalyst to identify and deliver further enhancements. “Catalyst has been an excellent partner from day one. We wanted a partner that brought real expertise to the table, but would also work in tandem with our own capabilities and resources to ensure maximum value from the relationship. We have worked really well together to develop a solution based on new technology that really delivers on all the benefits we expected,” Derrick Morey concludes.
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