Shaw’s Magic Carpet Meets IBM’s Magic Box
Shaw Industries Chooses IBM S/390 in $14 Million Contract
SOMERS, N.Y (December 21, 1999) – In a $14 million, six-year deal, Shaw Industries, the number one carpet manufacturer in the world, has selected the IBM S/390 server as its data center server for all core business applications. The contract, reflecting an ongoing partnership between the two firms, includes hardware, software and maintenance for the S/390 server implementation.
The move to the S/390 server was prompted when Shaw was faced with upgrading their information system, which had been running on a competitor’s server. After considering several different servers, Shaw chose the IBM S/390 as their main platform. The changeover — which includes installing new suites of enterprise resource planning applications and business process changes — is expected to be complete by the end of 2001.
So far, the implementation has been smooth. The first applications to run on the S/390 were key PeopleSoft payroll and human resources programs. Shaw began moving payroll data to the new IBM server in early 1999 and made the switch during one weekend in October without any problems. Shaw is in the process of moving all other core business applications to the S/390 server, with order entry, production and distribution applications in the process of being integrated, to create a robust sales data warehouse.
“Locating all our data on the S/390 continues to make our evolution into e-business that much easier,” said Robert Watson, director of IT for Shaw.”By using the same enterprise server to host our e-business applications, we can leverage our information in the most efficient way possible.”
Source: IBM