San Mateo, CA October 4, 2002 Wavin, one of the world's largest manufacturers of plastic pipe systems and industrial plastics products, is set to use software from solution provider Blue Martini to deploy a new global product catalog and to integrate its front-end ordering system with its back-end systems.
Headquartered in The Netherlands, Wavin named for the first two syllables of water and vinyl is deploying the Blue Martini applications as part of a larger e-business initiative. This initiative includes powering its main corporate site, local language and currency sites across 24 countries, a multilingual e-catalog and an online marketplace for both internal and external transactions.
The Dutch company will use the applications to deploy a new catalog for its 40,000 products. Packaged Blue Martini integration capabilities will enable Wavin's customer- and partner-facing applications to leverage information from a variety of back office systems, including SAP, Baan, Concorde, Axapta, BPCS and two internally developed enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
In addition to Blue Martini applications, the Wavin site also incorporates Lotus Notes for e-catalog content and IBM MQ Series for e-marketplace messaging protocol, both of which are also integrated with Blue Martini applications.
Wavin's top priority was to become easier to do business with for both customers and partners. With the account management capabilities in the new software, Wavin's customers can open accounts that not only show account activity, order status and payment history but also automatically calculate personalized pricing based on customer-specific contract information downloaded from one of the integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
Meanwhile, suppliers, distributors and customers will also establish inventory minimum/maximum levels and trigger an automatic replenishment process when stock falls below established levels.
Wavin anticipates that its Blue Martini solution will improve product forecasting, enable responsive service, reduce shelf stock and help the company deliver on its "just-in-time" fulfillment policy. The company also is counting on the reduction in manual content management and catalog printing costs from using the new applications to deliver significant savings.
"This initiative is designed to establish a clear competitive advantage for Wavin," said Gert-Jan Maasdam, director of e-business at Wavin. Maasdam added that the new technology "will provide a break-through level of service for our customers and a breakthrough level of operational efficiency through reduced costs."
