ERP Software Implemented at Borden Cheese Ahead of Schedule

Software provider SCT (Malvern, PA) has implemented its ADAGE ERP solution in only four months at the Borden Cheese division of U.S. dairy cooperative Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA). This rapid implementation at Borden led to a contract with DFA to license ADAGE as its enterprise-wide process ERP solution at 50 locations across the US.

DFA, headquartered in Kansas City, MO, markets 36 billion pounds of milk per year and offers an extensive line of milk and cheese products, including the Borden brand name.

When DFA bought the Borden business unit from parent company Borden Foods Corp. it faced a tight deadline for setting up a new computer infrastructure with a team of new IT managers.

A hardware infrastructure had to be set up within 90 days and an ERP package implemented in five months. The system would support 50 employees in Columbus, 50 at the company's manufacturing plant in Plymouth, WI, and 40 traveling employees.

For ERP software, Borden wanted a product specifically designed for process manufacturing. IS Director Alan Turley considered ERP software from bigger vendors, but didn't like the fact that those companies serve a large number of industries.

"SCT is focused on consumer packaged goods and food companies," Turley said. "We believed their implementation could be done in a short period of time, and it was."

The successful implementation at Borden Cheese, among others, convinced DFA. Over the next two years, DFA will deploy ADAGE to more than 450 users running on Microsoft Windows NT and utilizing the SQL Server database, version 7.0.

"When we decided to employ an enterprise-wide ERP solution at DFA, ADAGE offered the best functional fit for our industry," said Joel Clark, vice president of Accounting and Information Systems at DFA.

SCT markets ADAGE for use on Microsoft NT and SQL Server and continues to prove that platform's robustness in manufacturing production environments. SCT's software engineering group, which uses SQL Server as its primary development platform, has performed testing with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, and found very positive results. SCT is ensuring that SQL Server 7.0 with ADAGE will be a seamless migration for customers.

ADAGE is an object-oriented, fully graphical enterprise resource planning (ERP) system focused on the process and manufacturing and distribution industries. ADAGE employs a series of dynamic workflows composed of industry-specific objects and business rules -- rather than traditional software modules -- that models key business processes across the supply chain.

Through its ADAGE ERP and FYGIR supply chain planning products, SCT offers a comprehensive, single-vendor Process Supply Chain Management (P/SCM) solution that meets the special requirements of process manufacturers and distributors in industries including food, beverage, and consumer package goods.

SCT is a leading provider of client/server, mission-critical, enterprise software and a series of information technology services for manufacturing & distribution, government, higher education, and utilities.