MSC Streamlines Materials Processing With Visual LANSA Framework

Material Sciences Corporation (MSC), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a world-class supplier of engineered material solutions for acoustical and coated metal applications to automotive, appliance, electronic and telecom equipment manufacturers worldwide. MSC used the Visual LANSA Framework to extend MAPICS with web access for customers and outside processors, a wireless shipping release system and LANSA Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Direct was used to exchange EDI transactions with business partners. Partners started reporting production on the day goods were produced and enter shipment details when material ships. The whole delivery and invoice cycle went from 7 days to 15 minutes. The site raised the level of customer service, especially customers who are in a different time zone. LANSA EDI Direct gave MSC an easy interface to do their document translation mapping, transaction process monitoring and error handling. It helped in configuring to the EDI standards and versions. MSC decided to extend MAPICS with a custom shipping release system using Visual LANSA Framework and Web Application Modules (WAMS). Using LANSA's XML/XSL-based WAM technology to separate business logic from presentation and the WYSIWYG editor made it easy to paint layout for both handheld symbol devices for warehouse staff and traditional screens. LANSA's integration with MAPICS, Visual LANSA Framework and LANSA EDI Direct has been the keys to delivering the applications to meet MSC processing requirements.