Business Impact Summary
"Ventyx was the only provider in the market that could deliver a complete B2B integration solution that provides the scalability and flexibility we need to enable us to
trade with all of our customers and suppliers."
Michael Dines
CIO
OneSteel
OneSteel is Australia’s largest manufacturer of steel long products and a leading metals distribution company, with revenues of $7 billion in 2007/8. To exchange transactions with trading partners, OneSteel needed a robust and scalable business-tobusiness (B2B) integration capability (e-hub) across the five different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems used within the company’s operations, including SAP, JD Edwards and BPCS.
OneSteel chose Ventyx Axis as its outsourced B2B integration solution to cut costs and to better service its trading partners by integrating its supply chain. The Ventyx Axis solution alleviates the complexities involved in implementing B2B including security of transactions, transformation of business document formats between the many different trading partners, connectivity methods, routing and delivery, monitoring and tracking of all transactions with the backup of a 24x7 support helpdesk.
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The Company
OneSteel is Australia’s largest manufacturer of steel long products and a leading metals distribution company, with revenues of $7 billion in 2007/8. Through its recent merger with major Australian steelmaker, Smorgon Steel, the company now markets more than 30,000 products to over 30,000 customers and has more than 11,000 employees in over 200 locations across Australia and offshore.
From minerals extraction through to metal recycling, the new, totally integrated OneSteel will deliver cost and performance benefits to their customers and stakeholders in the construction, manufacturing, housing, mining and agricultural industries.
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The Challenge
OneSteel operates in a very complex trading environment, buying from a wide range of suppliers and selling its finished products to a sizeable customer base. A significant amount of this trading is conducted within the OneSteel group. Purchasing from suppliers involves both direct items used for the manufacture of the company’s steel products, as well as MRO procurement used for operations and the maintenance of OneSteel’s facilities. OneSteel had been exchanging procurement documents via traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with a number of its suppliers and customers. However due to the cost and complexity of the EDI platform, this type of electronic trading was restricted to documents exchanged within the OneSteelgroup and with a small number of large trading partners only. This meant that most document exchange remained a manual process.
To exchange transactions with trading partners, OneSteel needed a robust and scalable business-tobusiness (B2B) integration capability (e-hub) across the five different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems used within the company’s operations, including SAP, JD Edwards and BPCS. The solution also needed to scale quickly to provide for potential future expansion of the business as a result of the company’s merger with Smorgon Steel.
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The Solution
OneSteel chose Ventyx Axis as its outsourced B2B integration solution to cut costs and to better service its trading partners by integrating its supply chain. Deployed as the OneSteel private e-hub, the solution provides integration from each of OneSteel’s internal ERP systems directly to trading partners. The solution was implemented to automate trading for both purchasing and sales.
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The Result
The Ventyx Axis solution alleviates the complexities involved in implementing B2B including security of transactions, transformation of business document formats between the many different trading partners, connectivity methods, routing and delivery, monitoring and tracking of all transactions with the backup of a 24x7 support helpdesk. This has enabled OneSteel to focus on and enhance their business processes, realize efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction. Ventyx Axis has:
- Delivered as a single B2B integration capability, providing a flexible, scalable, secure, and cost effective whole-of-enterprise solution
- Eliminated many manual tasks such as data entry, manual Invoice matching and Purchase Order follow-ups
- Eliminated the need for in-house development resources to handle the disparate connectivity and document format requirements of trading partners
- Reduced costs by 50% annually and improved service to internal and external customers through automated business processes for purchasing and sales
- Paid back initial project investment within three years
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