Aviall: Get Apps to Work Together

A devastating Wall Street Journal headline in late 1999 said it all: "Aviall: Computer-related issues push down profit by 62 percent." The world's biggest independent distributor of aerospace parts was losing business because of its customer-facing software. It had overengineered its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from Lawson Software to perform functions it was not meant to handle, like order entry. Its custom-coded Web site was a hassle for customers to use, and pricing and inventory information was never available in real time.

In January 2000, the company brought in a new chief executive, Paul Fulchino, and a VP of information systems, Joe Lacik. "As soon as I got there the VP of sales came into my office and asked, 'When is this Web site going to do the $#&@ it's supposed to do?' " Lacik recalls. "I looked at the site and thought, 'Never.' "

Fulchino and Lacik decided to overhaul everything. They pared down the Lawson system's functions to its strengths: financials and human resources. They brought in BroadVision software so Aviall.com could deliver personalized versions of the company's online catalog, including the reams of documents—like material-safety data sheets—that must be provided with many of the 250,000 products Aviall sells. They brought in Siebel Systems software for order entry and sales-force automation, Xelus software for forecasting, and Catalyst warehouse management software. Then they used Sybase's New Era of Networks (NEON) e-Biz Integrator to make all these applications talk to each other in real time. Aviall rolled out the new site in February 2001.

Now, says Lacik, "everything we do is in real time. When someone places an order, within milliseconds a pick ticket is printing out in a warehouse." The Web is Aviall's biggest sales channel.

Savings? The revamp cost between $30 million and $40 million, according to Lacik. But it may have saved the company from an untimely demise. In bottom-line dollars, Lacik calculates a savings of more than $19 million so far, from improved profit margins and lower costs to generate quotes and sales transactions.

Copyright © 2002 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Ziff Davis Smart Business.