m-Power Case Studies

Daiwa's 2-person IT staff becomes internally productive with m-Power
Daiwa's 2-person IT staff didn't have the time or resources to fix some urgent problems, and hiring outside consultants wasn't an option. After comparing different development tools, they chose m-Power because it allowed for the fastest development and had the shortest learning curve. With m-Power, Daiwa's 2-person IT staff had the tool they needed to quickly fix both urgent problems, and handle a wide variety of additional projects, all without relying on outside consultants.

Boone County solves multiple problems with m-Power
Many IT departments face the same problem: They lack the time or resources to accomplish some of their most crucial projects. That’s the predicament in which the Boone County IT department found themselves. However, while attempting to find the solution for one problem, they found a solution that would let them address many problems using their current staff and skills.

Raleigh's IT department boosts company profits
With competitors rolling out web-based ordering systems and customers asking for a web-based ordering option, Raleigh UK needed a solution quickly. However, their 3 person IT staff had neither the time nor the resources for a project of this size. After ruling out a few generic, off-the-shelf software solutions, they found the answer in m-Power. Using m-Power, they built a custom extranet that fulfilled every requirement, only doing it faster and cheaper than every other generic, off-the-shelf option.

DAMS International fights the bad economy with m-Power, opens up new revenue
Dams International was facing a couple of problems: The poor economy and an inacessible discontinued stock warehouse that was wasting both time and money. In a time when many companies are reacting to the struggling economy with cut-backs and layoffs, DAMS International took a different approach. They invested in m-Power, and by doing so, they opened up a new 24/7 revenue stream and become far more efficient.

FMS Solutions chooses m-Power over 9 different products to modernize their reporting capabilities
FMS Solutions had a great problem--a problem that many companies would love to have: They were growing too fast. In fact, over the last three years, they nearly doubled in size. Why was that a problem? Well, it was becoming difficult to support the their expanding customer base with their current reporting tools, which were starting to show their age. After setting up a list of requirements and evaluating 9 different products, FMS decided on m-Power to modernize their reporting capabilities.

Bimba Manufacturing Company modernizes and innovates for a six-figure savings
Bimba's green-screen-technology-based system that allowed its outside distributors to access key account information online, was aging quickly. They knew they could put a band-aid on the problem, but Bimba's senior management wanted a modern, Web-based extranet that was simple to access, easy to use. They got more than that. The m-Power-built solution was also flexible, platform-independent, wireless, and used in SOA applications...and linked directly to their fifteen year old mainframe. The entire cost for modernization, including an mrc consultant, cost one-fourth of what it would have cost for the band-aid solution. Their choice of m-Power resulted in a six-figure cost savings.

IT Jungle: Boise Cascade Gets 'm-Powered' with mrc Reporting Tool
"The word came down from Boise Cascade's management in May like a ton of pulp: Develop a sophisticated Web-based reporting system that interfaces with multiple host systems, and do it in three weeks." However, despite being short a developer, the group persevered and managed to meet its deadline, with a little help from the mrc development tool, m-Power.

Retailer Kurt Geiger revamps reporting with intranet dashboard in a matter of days. (PDF)
Kurt Geiger, Europe's leading luxury shoe retailer, operates over 100 department store concessions including Harrods, Selfridges and Hou of Frase as well as its own 14 standalone outlets. With such a heavy retail load, the company needed to tackle a number of issues, including replacing existing reporting methods with better access to data and with the creation of a powerful intranet dashboard. And they were able to accomplish this in-house in a matter of days.

Bosselman Energy rethinks the datamart
With fifteen companies representing 8 separate industries, flexible Web reporting was not only key, but crucial to keeping Bosselman Energy employees performing their jobs at top levels. But, they faced a number of challenges including the sheer size of the data with more than 15 million records in their datamart and 600,000 new records being added each month. They needed something fast, powerful...and now.

Manufacturer Emhart Glass's Application Development Manager uses m-Power to bring creativity and ingenuity to his IT projects
The exceptional part of this story is the volume and breadth of myriad applications that Alan thought of, and then created to give Emhart Glass much more comprehensive Java Web solutions than they could have imagined. Alan has even moved into the wireless realm, with some creative (and incredibly useful) applications that can run on cell phones and Blackberry devices.

Manufacturer Northwest Door gets to Java (and an executive dasboard) 60x faster with m-Power than with IDE.
Executive Dashboard: NWD builds a complex Java-based Web system tied to their Frontier ERP in just twelve weeks, with no prior Java or Web experience.

Manufacturer Stannah Group has a growth spurt
Stannah Group, the UK's largest manufacturer of stairlifts, found itself growing and expanding so quickly that they new they had to find ways for their System i (AS/400) systems to keep pace with the dynamic changes in their business. Their need for new management information and niche applications was never ending, but they also wanted to minimize the modifications to their core manufacturing packages, and provide the functionality their users needed. So, using m-Power...Stannah developed a whole new suite of Web applications tied directly to their ERP in just under two weeks.

Insurance's Allianz Global Risk turns its GENIUS into a sweetheart
International Fortune 500 insurer, Allianz, creates a custom CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, over their own customized packaged software, Genius, in two months time with just two developers, coming in under a tight corporate deadline, and 8 months ahead of predictions.

GBC gets out of a Movex bind with Web reporting tool
General Binding Company had a problem. Its Movex software package didn't have robust enough operational reporting capabilities. That's when it found mrc's m-Power could not only be used to create a robust reporting system to work with Movex, but it would additionally increase their overall productivity by 33% in the process.

Distributor Midland Medical's B2B e-commerce site runs on Linux and an old PC that cost $500 to set up, with sales now projected in millions.
This distributor used the mrc-Productivity Series ( m-Power's precursor) to create a secure, easy-to-use site for their B2B customers to use to place orders. It is written in Java servlets that they run on Linux and serve from a PC, and they had no prior experience with Java at all. The entire system set up cost them between $500-$1000, and their online sales projections for this year alone are already in the millions.

Manufacturer, Prettl Electric's custom Web application changes their view of the world
Prettl Electric, an automotive manufacturer, gives global access to its worldwide production schedule and shipping calendar...allowing them to see at-a-glance where things stand and is tied live, directly to their powerful MRP system. (Red means product is low. Green means numbers are good.) Their original schedule was built in Excel, and required constant e-mailing, updating, and monitoring of disparate versions.

Distributor Tichenor College Textbooks gets e-commerce site up and running in days with a 5 week ROI.
Customer demands required this distributor to move to the Web in order to remain competitive in the marketplace...the results? A 5 week ROI.

Village of Lombard builds systems that save dogs and increases revenue
Lombard's IT Manager, Larry McGhinnis, not only made two city processes better, but turned a revenue trickle into a revenue stream...and discovered a way to help stray dogs find their way home.