Overview
Marubeni-Itochu Steel Oceania Pty Ltd (MISO) provide for the diverse needs of the steel and iron industry.

Business need
Improve business agility, streamline and automate ordering systems and provide better customer service

Solution
Customised Internet based steel supply chain management system

Benefits
Real-time information, integrated logistic functions with centralised control

Statistics
• Over half a million hits in the first 3 months of operation
• Users stay an average of 46 minutes per session
• Most active users are located in Australia, Japan, USA and China

MISO is the joint venture between Itochu Corporation and Marubeni Corporation and is a Japanese owned company. MISO Steel fulfills steel and iron requirements for many companies. General Motors Holden (GMH) was one of these companies. However they required MISO to streamline their ordering system. The previous system was paper based and prone to errors. Due to the large and complex nature of the project MISO engaged with several other organizations to ensure success. The companies included Skylight, MISI and Arcadia. Arcadia then partnered with Talman Solutions to produce the system.

Requirements
The project required Talman to produce a customized steel supply chain management (SCM) system. Talman consulted extensively with MISO to establish their requirements. To ensure flexibility with ordering the system needed to be available through a web browser and in real time. MISO also required the system to produce Order Balance Reports to show any unshipped, delivered and stock quantities. Talman’s expertise allowed them to provide high quality guidance to MISO.

Development challenges
The development time given to Talman was limited. They decided they needed to evaluate their system and methodologies to ensure they were of the highest standards to guarantee the project was delivered on time.

The first step for Talman was to decide how to manage the software lifecycle. Although they had an application in place they decided they required a more stable platform. They decided to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System. Team System allows for integrated testing, integrated code analysis and most importantly robust source control capabilities. Talman used the Agile method within Team system and then customized to MISO requirements.

Collaboration is crucial
Talman decided they needed all team members to collaborate information for the project to be successful. A portal was opened through the Internet to Team Foundation Server (TFS) to allow the Talman team to pool resources. This allowed discussion forums, bug lists and process metrics reports to be available on the Internet.

Talman recognised that careful project management was crucial to project success. To facilitate an efficient project plan they engaged a third party project management specialist to recommend project methodology improvements.

The system was designed by the Web Development team at Talman. Talman chose technologies based on their expertise and the product’s reputation in the development community. Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 was used to design the front end of the website. This then integrates into Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for all database functions of the website.

Technology customisation
Talman highly customized and extended the technologies for the client. This included changing the standard settings of ASP.NET to follow the MISO business model. Other customizations included changing validation controls, encryption levels and changing the way the pages are viewed. It also meant changes to SQL server including the schema and data types that are accepted.

They used the SCM system to allow stakeholders (customer, coordinator, supplier, shipping company, warehouse and mill) to manage information such as material, order, inventory and EDI data (packing list and inspection result).

Difficulties overcome
There were a number of difficulties to overcome in this project. The main difficulty was developing a solution in a very short time frame. This was achieved by ensuring systems were in place to better manage the project and the software lifecycle. This meant that bug lists could be posted in a central location.