B&R Benefits from crossgate’s EDI2all Campaign
Electronic link-ups to the Business Integration PlatformTM for B&R’s business partners
Starnberg, 26 June 2007 – It was August 2006 when crossgate launched its EDI2all campaign, which gave companies the opportunity to exchange the ‘credit’ they possessed in the form of EDI interfaces for new links to crossgate’s electronic business platform B.I.P., a step intended to enhance their electronic communication capabilities. Austrian automation specialist B&R has now taken advantage of this offer and reorganised its EDI system, connecting additional business partners to B.I.P. into the bargain. The roll-out for the project has already started and is due to be completed by the end of the year. Over 50 companies are involved.
Many firms possess EDI systems of their own, but fail to make adequate use of them. The main reasons for this are the high cost and the amount of effort involved in linking up new partners. ‘EDI2all’ is a campaign in which companies are able to transfer their EDI processes to the Business Integration PlatformTM (B.I.P.) run by crossgate without incurring any charges. Subsequently, they can benefit from the synergy effects inherent in using the largest EDI network in Europe. In this business model, the firms that are linked up only pay for the ebusiness service on a per-transaction basis; in other words, they are only charged for the data they actually transmit – there is no need to invest any additional money in hardware or software, and upgrades are also unnecessary. What’s more, one business partner is connected up to the system for free every time a new customer interface is added to the B.I.P. repository.
Based in Eggelsberg, Austria, automation specialist Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-ElektronikGes.m.b.H., or B&R for short, has been producing drives,control units, industrial PCs, operator interfaces and process control systems for 27 years. Currently, B&R employs more than 1,500 people at its global locations. Its international customers in the mechanical and plant engineering sectors highly appreciate B&R’s fully integrated automation solutions, of all which are based on a single software tool. In fiscal 2006 the company achieved a turnover of 235 million euros, an increase of more than 23 per cent compared with the previous year.
In the past, B&R employed SAP’s Business Connector to facilitate electronic communication with its business partners and used its own staff resources to administer the software. The company’s existing interfaces are now being integrated into the B.I.P. repository and additional firms are being linked up via the transaction platform. B&R’s management plans to broaden the scope of its electronic communication considerably so as to be able to exchange business data with more than fifty companies with whom it works – data that will only be exchanged electronically. Crossgate has agreed to manage the entire project. Once all B&R’s partners have been connected to the system, the volume of transactions is expected to reach 8,000 messages a month. Bernecker & Rainer are paying a flat fee for this based on the amount of work Crossgate expects to have as a result.
“The work our staff would have had to do to connect all our business partners up would have been too much for us to cope with. That’s why we decided to outsource the EDI link-ups to a company that could take over the day-to-day running of the system,” says Josef Raschhofer, head of B&R’s IT department. “Crossgate has technical competence in a wide range of fields and proven experience in implementing projects,” he adds. “This company will ensure us the best possible communication with our international customers, partners and suppliers.”
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