AutoMate Powers ERP Processes for a High Technology Manufacturer

Imaging and Sensing Technology Corporation (IST) Bryant Hozempa, Manager, Information Services

Background

Imaging and Sensing Technology (IST) is a technology company that designs and manufactures advanced electronic and component systems. The company's core markets include nuclear power generation and industrial manufacturing.

The Challenge

IST uses Fourth Shift software by SoftBrands to manage its operations in Big Flats, New York (headquarters) and Buffalo, New York, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada and France. For Fourth Shift to function correctly for IST, a series of process must be run each night on several servers. These processes include batch runs, data extracts, and system backup.

In the past, IST's technical staff ran these processes manually. A user would interact with the Fourth Shift application interface and initiate the batch processes by navigating through a series of screens. Moreover, the processes normally take many hours to complete, and this required an operator to babysit the application during execution.

The Solution

Paul Kosloski, Supervisor of Information Services and Bryant Hozempa, Manager of Information Services at IST, discovered that they could both automate and schedule the execution of these nightly processes with AutoMate software. In a matter of hours, Paul had scripted the automatic interaction with Fourth Shift, eliminating the need for the tedious manual intervention.

The Benefits

Since using AutoMate to automate and streamline nightly processes, as well as user-initiated processes that have to be run during the day, Bryant estimates that IST saves 15-20 hours a month. On top of that, he enjoys the peace-of-mind that AutoMate's robust automation of Fourth Shift provides - no more babysitting the nightly processes and fewer interruptions during the day.

Bryant also developed Automate tasks which allow users to run certain processes directly on the company's powerful servers. Consequently, these processes run much faster than if they would on the users' local workstations. The "magic", through Automate, is that the processes are initiated from the end-user workstation and the end-user never gets physically near the actual server. This is especially useful for generating iterations of financial statements during the month-end closing cycle. This has also increased user productivity tremendously because users can do their work on their workstation while the server is busy cranking out the reports. When all report processing is complete, AutoMate notifies the user via email.