Infor is the world's third largest ERP vendor and #1 ERP in the Industrial Machinery and Equipment (IM&E) industry, operating in over 20 languages and representing 15 of the top 20 equipment manufacturers. A leading provider of business software and services headquartered in Alpharetta, GA, Infor helps 70,000 customers in 125 countries improve operations and drive growth. The company is financially strong ($2.3 billion) and has Sales Offices in over 100 countries.

Infor helps industrial enterprises optimize their enterprise performance strategies and compete in the knowledge-driven 'networked economy' with its ever-increasing demands for information, integration, and collaboration. Through its open and powerful iBaan suite of Internet-enabled solutions, Infor is ideally placed to support organizations in the manufacturing, logistics, services, and engineering industries as they move towards tighter integration of their complex processes, closer collaboration throughout their value chain, and greater accessibility of cross-enterprise transactional and analytical information.

Challenges
Infor's vision is to support multi-vendor component based solutions through the iBaan OpenWorld Universal Integration Framework with the ultimate goal of providing its customers with any-to-any application connectivity. Infor wanted to develop a seamless integration on the iBaan OpenWorld platform to integrate iBaan with many parts of several existing SAP systems, giving users access to SAP features and optimizing their existing investment. Infor selected e-Emphasys for this project, acknowledging our in depth knowledge of iBaan OpenWorld and also the SAP integration Architecture.

Solution
e-Emphasys developed a generic adapter for SAP using iBaanOpenworld that provides customers with a generic solution that can more easily integrate with many parts of several SAP systems without the need for modification. This adapter developed by e-Emphasys is now known as the iBaan OpenWorld Adapter for SAP and is now part of the iBaan suite of Internet-enabled solutions that combines proven Baan technology with new developments to enable customers to take significant steps towards seamlessly integrating systems and processes. It provides end-users with personalized and easy-to-use information, and empowers businesses to collaborate with their customers and suppliers over the Internet.

SAP provides an extensive library of RFMs to implement business logic. This list increases with every new release of SAP. The generic nature of the iBaan OpenWorld Adapter for SAP ensures that the customer has access to this ever-increasing pool of externally accessible business logic.

Results and Benefits
Guido Dik, iBaan OpenWorld Solution Manager for Infor, commented: "We decided to build this product for the general marketplace after a successful deployment at the Foxboro site, where we integrated iBaan E-Sales with a SAP R/3 system. This new SAP connector means functionality within SAP can be more easily integrated into iBaan OpenWorld, providing connectivity and making iBaan OpenWorld an even richer framework with a wider range of standard integrators. The launch of the SAP platform connector is also further proof of our commitment to our iBaan OpenWorld network alliance members and forms part of our core strategy to deliver open systems applications that have extensive integration capabilities with our own solutions and those of third party competitors."

Milind Bagade, CEO of e-Emphasys Technologies said that e-Emphasys is focused on providing industry-leading levels of consulting and customer support services which will enable iBaan OpenWorld customers maintain and upgrade their any-to-any applications in a very comprehensive and cost-effective manner. Our specialized implementation and integration skills will enable us maintain the high quality standards built into the iBaan OpenWorld solutions.

e-Emphasys used this project to demonstrate how iBaan's open integration technology can work in parallel with non-Baan back-office systems Using this universal integration framework enables companies to integrate many of their Baan applications with various third party solutions and legacy systems, embracing processes, data, people and applications in one coherent environment. It helps increase organizational responsiveness and reduces costs through enabling companies to establish an Internet presence, automate processes and develop tighter business relationships.