Pain
The leading global silicon supplier produces chemicals for a number of industries and transfers them from manufacturing plants to destination centers via returnable tankers. Because of the nature of their product, there are stringent government guidelines on where the product is located at any given time. Currently, tracking and analysis of the high volume of shipments was a humanbased, data entry-driven process. It also offered little real-time visibility into the movement of trailers and allowed room for human error.The supplier sought to implement a physical, radio frequency identification (RFID) based process that would tie movement of the shipments to automated business processes and reduce errors, boost productivity, save costs and increase visibility.

Vision
An Industry Specialist of Supply Chain worked with the architecture group at the supplier to craft a robust tracking solution that would surface physical RFID events and translate them to real SAP business processes. The whole solution would be based on Microsoft products including BizTalk Server RFID.

Value
Based on a strong recommendation from Microsoft, the client turned to MPS Partners, a Gold-certified Microsoft Partner and leading BizTalk integration provider for assistance. Together with Microsoft and the supplier's business process owners, MPS Partners scoped a robust BizTalk RFID system powered by BizTalk Server 2009 and the Microsoft platform. This advanced system would allow the supplier to capture, filter and integrate physical events (movement of products between plants tracked by RFID readers at strategic sites and tags on client’s trailers) into the client’s back-end SAP systems, giving the client:

- Real-time visibility into pallets being built, inventory being moved and trailers crossing the country
- Traceability across the business process, including events both internal and external to SAP
- Operational efficiencies and overall cost savings

Working closely with the client’s team, MPS Partners led the design, installation and configuration of this robust platform for RFID tracking, including appropriate exception handling and system monitoring capabilities.

Solution
Within four months, the system was built, implemented and successfully piloted using shipments between two busy plants. The pilot proved that the BizTalk platform could seamlessly integrate with standard business processes in SAP and be easily scaled to meet future business needs. The test implementation also ensured the new system would enable the client to:

• Gain end to end visibility of trailers and corresponding product between plants
• Increase productivity through streamlined and automated processes
• Reduce errors associated with human-based functions
• Identify bottlenecks in the process that can be optimized

Based on its proven monitoring and auditing capabilities, the BizTalk RFID system is now in production for the two pilot plants, and MPS Partners has been engaged to help the client develop and
complete a companywide rollout. Once the system is fully integrated, it is expected to save the client hundreds of thousands of dollars from improved efficiencies that will be realized once the system has been fully integrated into the operation’s business processes.