Hokubee Prevents Disruptions to Vital Warehouse Operations & Boosts Efficiency with Progress OpenEdge and Professional Services
.jpg?sfvrsn=842fa8d6_1 "Meltique Beef Brand")
Industries:
Food & AgricultureChallenge
Hokubee’s customized product scanning and tracking application was no longer receiving support from their initial partner. Since it’s ingrained into its infrastructure, if this application went down, then the production and daily operations would, as they put it, “grind to a halt.”
Solution
- Modernized Hokubee’s customized scanning system by leveraging assistance from Progress Professional Services.
- Upgraded from OpenEdge 10.2A to 12.8 to maintain future support with patch updates and scalability.
- Supported the new system by implementing new scanners, server updates and networking enhancements.
Result
- Mitigated the risks of potential production issues on legacy hardware with reliable infrastructure.
- Maintained greater traceability of Hokubee’s beef products from source to export while meeting market requirements.
- Increased operational capacity by one-third with the use of new scanners and system updates.
Full Story
Challenge
Hokubee, a leading beef production company founded in Japan but based in Australia, is on a mission to clean up the way the meat industry disposes of waste and transform the methods of beef distribution worldwide. Their IT team also understood the importance of modernizing its most business-critical applications when they upgraded from Progress® OpenEdge® 10.2A to 12.8.
The organization operated a customized scanning program and inventory system built on the OpenEdge platform. For nearly a decade, the organization has been leveraging this customized application as the backbone of its infrastructure operations and wanted to continue to use it. However, the third-party company that managed the application went out of business.
Hokubee was also running its customized scanning program on older model PCs. Jody Perkins and Belinda Perkins, the Managing Director and Administration Manager at Hokubee, respectively, became aware of the security and operational risks of running an essential application on legacy hardware. If there were to be any hardware outages or malfunctions, the daily operations and the production system would have been simultaneously negatively impacted.
The OpenEdge 12.8 upgrade was basically seamless. That speaks to the strength of Progress and the team behind it.
Belinda Perkins
Administrative Manager at Hokubee
Solution
Hokubee worked with Progress Professional Services to help them upgrade their customized OpenEdge-based application. First, Jody and Belinda sat down with the team to discuss why the beef distributor needed an urgent update. Instead of creating a "square peg, round hole" situation, Progress Professional Services tailored a solution that fit Hokubee's specific business needs.
Going from 10.2, which was released in November 2008, to 12.8 was a big step for Hokubee. But, thanks in part to the guidance received by Progress Professional Services, migrating from older hardware and software to a virtual machine wasn’t impossible. When asked about working with Progress Professional Services, Belinda shared how streamlined the process was.
"The 12.8 upgrade was basically seamless," said Belinda. "That speaks to the strength of Progress and the team behind it.”
Result
Over the course of a year, Hokubee successfully upgraded to OpenEdge 12.8 and is now experiencing a more efficiently run business.
Hokubee has mitigated the potential security risks of operating its business on unsupported software. Jody and Belinda are no longer worried about would-be production failures. Their newly updated, reliable infrastructure enables them to focus on daily tasks and, more importantly, business scalability. One of the benefits of migrating to OpenEdge 12.8 and to Progress Application Server for OpenEdge is the increased application availability, thanks in part to its ability to back up data and remain available during planned or unplanned outages.
Jody, Belinda and the numerous other warehouse workers are pleased with the new scanning system. Instead of relying on one or two "good" scanners, the warehouse now has three efficiently working ones, which has helped increase operational capacity by approximately one-third.
But it's not just the scanners that are improving operations; the upgraded systems enable greater visibility into their inventory. Employees can track items from the Hokubee headquarters to the paddock where the beef came from. The newly updated system is now providing employees with insights into every step of the supply chain, from getting the raw meat off the farm to the final shipping process. Now, Hokubee can continue providing distributors and restaurants across the APJ region with the best possible cuts of beef, all on a system powered by the OpenEdge platform.
We knew we wanted to modernize. However, Progress Progressional Services convinced us to take it all the way to 12.8. The team made us consider the long-term benefits for future success. They answered all our questions and gave us the confidence to take on this project.
Jody Perkins
Managing Director at Hokubee