Portfolio

H&K International
http://www.hki.com

Summary

H&K International is a leading manufacturer and supplier of kitchen equipment for catering firms and fast food restaurants, including McDonalds, Subway and Pret A Manger. They approached Icreon because they needed to update a legacy enterprise resource planning system that was restricting growth and to implement a new B2B ecommerce system that would make it easier for people to purchase HKI products.

Technology:

Microsoft .Net, SQL Server, C#, Starquest, AS/400 and DB2

Project

The primary requirement was for Icreon to design and build a user-friendly B2B ecommerce portal from which HKI customers could choose and order new equipment and spare parts. This portal had to be integrated into HKI’s enterprise resource planning system, which was based on AS/400 and DB2 and needed some upgrades, as well as into a separate ecommerce system called SpendSmart (which was used by McDonalds to choose the most cost-effective vendors). Other requirements included:

• Replacing HKI’s old catalogue, which was part paper-based and part web-based, with the new ecommerce system.
• Ensuring the new ecommerce system would operate seamlessly across multiple countries, languages and currencies – handling payments on accounts as well as by credit card
• Streamlining HKI’s business processes by upgrading the legacy ERP and connecting it to the internet
• Synchronising HKI’s data between the ecommerce system and ERP so that customer and product details were not duplicated
• Pushing new orders from the ecommerce system into the ERP for fulfilment
• Implementing a new universal parts numbering system to improve stock control.
• Developing a desktop application that could use AutoCAD drawings to create graphics of HKI’s products and parts on the ecommerce portal.

Our solution

We began by working closely with HKI to discuss the project in greater detail and sent a project manager to meet HKI staff and stakeholders in three countries to establish and record their full requirements. From this we created a comprehensive wireframe and a specifications document for HKI to approve.

We then developed an entirely bespoke solution for HKI using the Microsoft .Net framework, SQL Server, C# and Starquest. It was successfully integrated into HKI’s ERP, synchronised all their business data and processes and provided the user-friendly ecommerce portal they needed to drive sales and cut costs. As a result, HKI’s customers can now find what they need more easily, place their orders online instead of over the phone and receive their purchases more quickly.

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