TDG achieves world first with RedPrairie’s MARC WMS running under AIX on IBM System i5

TDG (www.tdg.eu.com) is one of Europe’s leading supply chain management companies, with operations in seven countries employing more than 7,000 people. With over 50 years of experience the company works extensively with blue-chip clients in the Chemical, Consumer Goods, Industrial and Retail sectors. TDG operates more than 12 million square feet of warehousing space and its 1,600 vehicles travel more than 100 million miles each year.

In a fast-moving global economy, TDG’s customers are increasingly dependent on accurate, up-to-the-minute information about their extended supply chains. TDG’s existing warehouse management systems (WMS) lacked the ability to support new technologies such as RFID and could not deliver information easily via the Web. The company selected a new solution – DLx Warehouse M WMS software from global supply chain leader RedPrairie – and was able to run it alongside core business systems on its IBM System i5 platform.

Grant Robertson, Group Service Delivery Manager at TDG, comments: “Our sole concern in choosing a new WMS was to get the world-class functionality we and our customers needed. By upgrading to an i570, we were able to implement this UNIX-based application alongside our i5/OS systems – avoiding a significant investment in a new hardware platform.”


UNIX on System i

TDG had run its transport management, WMS and financial systems on servers in the IBM System i family for more than 20 years. Nevertheless, the company was determined not to allow its preference for this platform to be the deciding factor in its choice for a new WMS solution.

Says Robertson, “We looked at the entire WMS marketplace, concentrating solely on functionality and the ability to support our global operations. In particular, we wanted to introduce Web-based track-and-trace, a more intuitive user interface, and support for the latest RFID technologies.

“The flexibility and power of DLx Warehouse M WMS convinced us that it was the best solution for our needs, even though it would require us to build a new UNIX-based platform with Oracle, rather than our preferred i5/OS with IBM DB2.”

The new IBM System i5 platform – built on IBM POWER5 microprocessors – is capable of running natively not only i5/OS, but also IBM AIX, 64-bit Linux and Microsoft Windows simultaneously on the same physical system.

“Rather than investing in two additional physical servers, we upgraded our existing iSeries servers to System i5 570 machines, and created AIX partitions on them,” says Robertson. “We now have just two physical systems to support our i5/OS applications and the AIX-based DLx Warehouse M WMS – representing a significant saving in hardware costs.”


World-first solution

TDG worked closely with IBM, RedPrairie and IBM Business Partner Logicalis to deploy the DLx M Warehouse WMS on two new System i5 570 platforms, each with four processors. TDG outsources the management of its data centres to Serco, which also played a key role in the implementation of the new solution.

“We clearly defined the project and set the goals – IBM, RedPrairie, Logicalis and Serco came together and worked as a team to make it happen,” says Robertson. “The teamwork between the companies was an important factor in the success of our WMS project, helping us to go live on schedule.”

The production and test environments for the DLx Warehouse M WMS system run on the first i570, with a mirror of the system on the second i570. TDG uses IBM HACMP to cluster the AIX production environment with its mirror, and Vision ORION to provide high availability for its i5/OS-based systems.

“To our knowledge, this is the first time that DLx Warehouse M WMS has been implemented under AIX on a System i5 platform,” says Robertson. “Thanks to the flexibility of the i570, we have successfully deployed cutting-edge functionality for our customers without the cost and complexity of introducing a second physical server platform.”

TDG is currently required to dedicate a full POWER5 processor on each i570 to the AIX LPARs. When it migrates to AIX 5.3, the company will be able to take advantage of IBM Micro-Partitioning to use fractions of a processor. AIX 5.3 will also enable Dynamic LPAR to be used, enabling TDG to shift processing power to and from different systems depending on demand. “With Dynamic LPAR, we will be able to give additional power to the WMS during the Christmas peak, or to the financial systems during year-end processing,” says Robertson.


Opening new global horizons

The new DLx Warehouse M WMS enables TDG to manage all aspects of distribution, fulfilment and transportation, including inbound and outbound operations, inventory management and yard operations. It includes built-in support for more than 25 RFID readers and more than 30 RFID printers, and can be accessed from practically any wireless or wired device.

“DLx Warehouse M WMS is opening up new possibilities for our global customers,” says Robertson. “We can now easily support the real-time exchange of transactions, enabling us to link seamlessly into external systems throughout the extended supply chain. What’s more, DLx Warehouse M provides detailed business intelligence, offering sophisticated analytics, forecasting, visualisation and reporting tools to help maintain warehouse performance and enable rapid response to events.”


Three into one will go

As TDG continues its rollout of the DLx Warehouse M WMS functionality across its sites, the company plans to gradually phase out its i5/OS-based WMS applications. The capacity that this will free up on the i570s can be seamlessly allocated to the AIX partitions, or used to support future consolidation initiatives. TDG plans to take advantage of the ability of the System i5 platform to integrate Microsoft systems.

“We are about to move an NT system to an Integrated xSeries Server inside the i570, and we plan to consolidate other business-critical Windows systems in the same way,” says Robertson. “Because the integrated Windows systems will use the i570 disk, all their data will automatically be mirrored to our second data centre, providing additional protection at no extra cost.”

He concludes, “With the System i5 platform, we can converge three separate operating environments into one physical system that is highly reliable and easy to manage. In the long-term, this will translate into significant cost savings and improved levels of service for our customers.”