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Company Description: Large regional bakery with 41 branch offices (25 in Ohio, 7 in Indiana, 6 in Pennsylvania, 2 in Michigan and 1 in West Virginia). Headquarters are in Navarre, Ohio, near Cleveland. The company's AS/400 at corporate headquarters runs all accounting, accounts receivable, ordering & production, payroll, and sales commission applications.
Problem to solve: Needed to speed up data transmission of daily customer orders and inventory status from branch office PCs. Route salesmen using handheld Norand equipment download this data into the branch PC every afternoon. File transfers from all 41 branches need to be completed within a short window: 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. By using the BOS Advanced Server, Nickles was able to implement an Internet-based file transfer solution, in the process replacing two leased lines (from headquarters to two plants) and slow and unreliable dial-up connections (14.4 Kbps with many disconnects). Connection to the corporate data center's Internet Service Provider is via digital cable modem, so transmission speed is now 1024 Kbps. Branch offices connect to the Internet using a regular dial-up account. Not only is file transfer accomplished within the hour and a half window, but also all information used by headquarters and branches resides on a single, realtime data base on the corporate AS/400.
Product Installed: BOS Advanced Server at corporate headquarters and BOSâNOVA terminal emulation on PCs at 41 branch offices.
Why Nickles chose BOS Advanced Server:
- Easy-to-use file transfer capability is built in
- Supports both twinax and Ethernet interfaces
- Configuration changes are easy
- Has data encryption at 256 level so that data sent over the Internet is secure
- Recommended by Jim Burgunder of Computer Communications Management, Pittsburgh
When: BOS Advanced Server installed at Navarre headquarters in June. By mid-September, 35 ISPs were selected, and file transfer over the Internet was implemented.
Contact:
- Ron Blicharksi, MIS Director, Nickles Bakery, Tel: (330) 879-5635 x501
- Jim Burgunder, Account Representative, Computer Communications Management, (724) 444-4280 x4203
Customer comments:
"By switching to an Internet-based solution, we were able to eliminate the cost of two leased lines between our headquarters and our two bakery plants. Plus, by connecting to the Internet through a cable-based rather than phone line-based ISP, we are saving an additional $600 per month." -- Ron Blicharski, Nickles Bakery
"We are now operating in real-time. Before, we had the PCs at each branch office collect and pre-process the information from the route salesmen's handhelds. As a result, the databases were not always in synch. Now all data is processed on the AS/400 so that our ordering and production data is always up to date. We use BOS's BOSâNOVA terminal emulation on each branch office PC, so there's no need to maintain local databases. Branch staff can just dial their local Internet provider and check the database on the AS/400." -- Ron Blicharski, Nickles Bakery
"The BOS Advanced Server provided all the functionality Nickles Bakery needed at a reasonable price, and it is easy to install and configure." -- Jim Burgunder, CCM
"We appreciated the flexibility of the BOS Advanced Server. Originally, we had connected it via the Twinax interface, but found we needed the extra bandwidth that Ethernet provides in order to complete file transfer from 41 branch offices within an hour and a half. The BOS/AS has both twinax and Ethernet interfaces, so switching from the 1Mbps to 10Mbps merely entailed some configuration changes." -- Jim Burgunder, CCM
"Jim Burgunder is a super to work with. He arranged for all the ISPs and worked with them to set up our 41 locations. He was there for us all the way." -- Ron Blicharski, Nickles Bakery
"We are very pleased with both the BOS product and the company. BOS's people are very helpful and knowledgeable. The BOS Advanced Server is working well." -- Ron Blicharski, Nickles Bakery
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