ClarkWestern Outsources i OS-Based EDI to Inovis
November 18, 2008 Alex Woodie
ClarkWestern Building Systems, a manufacturer of lath and steel framing systems, is migrating ERP systems. As a result, it will rely on Inovis‘ managed services offering to run its i OS-based EDI system, Inovis announced recently. ClarkWestern is a privately held manufacturer based in Middletown, Ohio, whose steel framing and accessories have been used on some notable projects, such as the Enron Building in Houston, Texas (now called the Chevron/Texaco Tower). Like many mid size manufacturers, the company relied on the IBM midrange server to manage parts of its business. For communication with trading partners using EDI, ClarkWestern relied on Inovis’ TrustedLink System i. Today, ClarkWestern is looking to migrate to a new ERP system, called PROFIT, which should be completed by 2009. At the same time, the company will be looking to completely outsource the management of the TrustedLink System i EDI software to Inovis. Inovis will manage ClarkWestern’s EDI operations from its Multi Enterprise Expert Service Hub (MESH) platform. According to Inovis, MESH offers 99.995 percent network availability, event-based choreography, hosted Web forms, and a product synch database with more than 100 million items, which it claims is the largest such database in the world. The outsourcing pact with Inovis will be a boon for ClarkWestern’s employee productivity, says Fred Coale, the company’s director of IT applications. “It gives our internal IT staff more time to work with our business partners on the highest value-added activities,” he says.
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