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Metals Service Leader Improves Decision Making, Gains Visibility into Global Supply and Demand
Redwood Shores, Calif. – July 1, 2010
Macsteel Holdings, one of the world’s largest private metals service centers, international metals trading and shipping companies, has modernized its technology foundation and improved its operations in North America by implementing the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 at Macsteel Service Centers USA.
By replacing its legacy system and standardizing on the latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite, Macsteel Service Centers USA now has a holistic view into its rapidly growing sales and procurement operations, and can keep a pulse on internal and external business trends surrounding orders, inventory, pricing and lead times in order to improve margins, reduce waste and strengthen its competitive edge.
During Macsteel’s IT revamp, the company deployed applications including financial management, inventory optimization, advanced supply chain planning and Oracle Transportation Management, which have greatly added value to the Macsteel business process.
Improved Visibility Provides Foundation for Growth
Macsteel Service Centers USA is one of the leading metals processors and distributors in North America, and offers one of the largest inventories of metals in the service center industry, processing and distributing metals to customers throughout North America and Puerto Rico.
Macsteel previously used a legacy system to track orders and manage financial data. However, this system was not sufficiently scalable and could not provide the management information or insight necessary to make effective business decisions in the highly-competitive, commodity steel market.
In 2009, Macsteel made a strategic decision to standardize its IT department and systems on the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. The organization began implementing Oracle in May and went live with five of its 30 branches and 100 users in December.
In order to meet the specialized needs of the metals service center industry, Macsteel leveraged Oracle Business Accelerators to tie its business requirements to the software using process maps. Macsteel also created software extensions to complement the system without changing the core technology, allowing the organization to easily upgrade and benefit from the latest versions of Oracle software.
Macsteel now has an end-to-end view of information across its lines of business and has been able to achieve valuable business advantages:
- With financial visibility into its extended supply chain costs, Oracle Landed Cost Management allows Macsteel to accurately analyze information such as transportation and acquisition costs in order to improve financial processes and decision making.
- By using the new converged inventory system, Macsteel has been able to merge process manufacturing with discrete manufacturing inventory into one shared application, delivering a detailed view of overall inventory costs.
- Running the Oracle E-Business Suite helps the organization track and manage important compliance data for audit purposes, including security hierarchies, raw material pedigree and purchase authorization, and ensures Macsteel retains genealogy and traceability data on its assets.
- Relying on Oracle Transportation Management, Macsteel benefits from improved planning of shipments and load consolidation while validating freight billing against expected shipment costs.
- Next, Macsteel plans to implement Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition to automate its data collection and analysis process.
“As a leader in the highly dynamic global steel market, our success is contingent on the ability to make educated and fast decisions based on rapidly changing market conditions,” said Stuart Patsos, vice president of IT, Macsteel Service Centers USA. “Having real-time insight from sales and procurement data enables us to understand and gauge changes in our supply and demand, as well as the trends in the overall marketplace. With the Oracle E-Business Suite, we benefit from a flexible solution that provides the visibility to efficiently optimize our inventory, reduce waste and increase profitability – now and in the future.”
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