Sligro Food Group N.V. is a wholesale food supplier in the Netherlands servicing over 35,000 organizations including supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, clubs, company canteens, hospitals, nursing homes, petrol stations, corner shops and the Dutch armed forces. Sligro implemented a LANSA-based electronic order system, called Slimis, that has a function rich Visual LANSA interface that also includes management information and a browser-based zero client interface.

Hugo Jaspers, IT manager at Sligro, says, "Ease-of-use was the key phrase for the development of Slimis. Slimis gives our customers a very user-friendly user interface and minimizes errors as well. People can access management information and create standard order lists for each day of the week and process them with the push of a button."

"Making it easier to do business with us has increased customer loyalty."
A Better Way to Order
Rene Barten, senior sales manager at Sligro, explains, "We have over 35,000 customers in two market segments. The hospitality or catering market, where consumers have their food or drink on location and the retail market, where the consumer buys the product at a supermarket or petrol station and takes it away."

"In the retail market automated stock replenishment systems are quite common, but in the hospitality and catering industry automated ordering is often missing or very basic. Many of the smaller companies that we acquired over the years used a tape recording voice messaging system to accept phone orders. That required manual data entry and orders were not always clear. You cannot build an efficient logistic process on such an ordering system."

"For a long time, our customers have been using hand-terminals that could be connected to the phone. This very basic electronic order system allowed for entry of quantities and item numbers only. It didn't give the customer a log of what was ordered and it didn't take away inquiry calls to our office. Customers told us they wanted more information than just item number and quantity. They want extra services such as management information and invoice history."

Jaspers adds, "We also had an old DOS solution that sent orders to a service bureau. We wanted to offer our customers a more user-friendly Windows or Internet solution under our control."

"We also wanted a productive development environment. We have 34 wholesale cash-and-carry stores, five regional fresh food centers and separate distribution centers for retailers, professional caterers and non-profit caterers like hospitals. We have an iSeries at each location and we have five iSeries machines here at our head office. All in all, we have 50 iSeries boxes to maintain. All development, except payroll and general ledger, is in-house."

"We compiled a list of 29 iSeries development tools. But only two allowed for 5250, Windows and Web development - LANSA and Cool Plex. We invited both vendors for elaborate product presentations. We chose LANSA because of its short learning curve, strong future and friendly pricing."

"We are now well positioned to attract new accounts."
Integrated Windows and Web Solution
Sligro's customers wanted a solution that is easy to use by kitchen staff, provides management information, and is available 24 hours a day without the need for a continuous Internet connection. In the Netherlands, local call charges are time based and broadband Internet connection, although gaining popularity, is not an option for everyone. It made sense to build a solution that captures data locally, rather than browsing large volumes of account and order information over the Internet.

"We elected to build a function rich Visual LANSA (VL) solution with quick upload and download of information only at the moment this is needed," continues Jaspers. "VL also allows for a very productive user interface for our high volume customers. We also created an online browser-based version for the small or casual customer. The Web version currently only offers order entry."

When a customer signs up for VL-based Slimis, Sligro creates a CD with customer-specific data, including the last two years of transactions. The CD also contains a complete catalog of Sligro's 50,000 products. On a central iSeries, another LANSA-based solution keeps track of changes since the customer last went online.

Every time a customer goes online, orders are sent to Sligro, past delivery information and the local catalog is automatically updated. In the same online session, typically less than a minute, client software is also updated.

"Server, client and communications are all LANSA-based," adds Jaspers. "To keep client software and data synchronized we use an object management system called TD/OMS Client Deployment (TD/OMS CD) from LANSA Partner Devoteam Remain.

"When the customer starts a Slimis session, TD/OMS CD automatically looks on the iSeries IFS for updates for this customer. TD/OMS CD collects these updates and applies them to the local Slimis installation. Updates usually take less than 10 seconds and the commands to go online and offline are automated in the catalog-refresh menu option.

While most customers use the function-rich Windows version of Slimis, some small customers may not have a PC on location and prefer to work from home with the Web version. Also, by linking the URL of the Web version from a portal site, the head office of a hotel chain controls the order frequency of individual hotels.

"Customers can enter their orders whenever it suits."
Better Service Saves Time
"Making it easier to do business with us has increased customer loyalty. Not only by providing order entry, but also by providing extra services. This is very import in a very competitive world," says Barten.

"We are now well positioned to attract new accounts. Prospective customers always ask what electronic ordering methods we offer. Extra services, like order history and account inquiry, are especially attractive to bigger accounts."

"The number of standard queries has also decreased. Special campaigns, new products and price changes are now well documented in the electronic catalog. Fewer standard queries gives our account managers more time to focus on new business."

"Customers save time as well, not only in the administrative area, but also in the operational area. For example, restaurant chefs are very pleased with the facility to order fresh product in portions of any desired size, such as five kilos of beef in 150 gram slices. Customers also like the fact that the product search lists alternative products."

"Another time saver is the repeat order facility. This allows customers to define standard orders for every day of the week and customize the order as needed."
"Now orders are error-free and transactions are logged at the customer's site. So there is no misunderstanding about what has been ordered and fewer complaints."

"Customers can enter their orders whenever it suits, but we don't need to have staff onsite to take those orders. The orders go straight to the delivery centers," says Barten.

"Our developers can use a single skill set to build iSeries, Windows and Web applications."
A More Productive Future
"We are very happy with the solution," concludes Jaspers. "Now our developers can use a single skill set to build iSeries, Windows and Web applications. Of course, you have to get familiar with the event driven paradigm, but the basic repository concept and 4GL commands are very similar for all platforms."

"Developers are many times more productive than with RPG, especially when they use templates. Programs maintenance is more productive as well. The time you invest in defining business rules in the LANSA Repository you gain back many times over when you develop the actual programs. All new development is now in LANSA. Not only for the head office and partners, but also internal systems on the 50 local iSeries machines."

"LANSA takes care of technology changes. For example, if Java replaced RPG as the fastest and preferred development environment on iSeries, then we can be assured that LANSA will take care of that underneath the covers. We use the same LANSA 4GL skill set and remain focused on the business, rather than technology." "LANSA keeps evolving and this assures us that we made the right choice for now and the future. LANSA keeps its promises. We recently implemented LANSA Reporter for productive and fast reporting. So we are building our entire IT infrastructure on LANSA."

For more information please visit www.sligro.nl and www.lansa.com