Bodycote goes Global with ECC

Summary

This summary has been provided by:

David Shipley
Corporate Development Director
Bodycote Materials Testing Group Ltd

Bodycote Materials Testing Group is the world leader in independent
materials testing.  The Group is headquartered at Newbridge, Near Edinburgh
and has grown from modest origins in Livingston in 1980 to being a group of
37 laboratories.  Bodycote laboratories can now be found in places as far
flung as Abu Dhabi, Toronto, Stavanger, Milan, Houston and Texas.

At the core of the Group's services are a range of diverse materials testing
services that it offers to a client base now exceeding 15,000 in number.
Engineering clients need mechanical testing to prove the suitability of
materials for construction, welding, corrosion resistance and a multitude of
other applications.  Amongst the more exotic tests performed are those for
applications such as turbine blades for aero-engines, artificial hip joints,
missiles and dental implants.  Pharmaceutical and environmental clients need
sophisticated chemical analysis services, whilst vehicle manufacturers want
to know what happens when the polymers they use experience wide climatic
changes.  There's never a dull moment in the materials testing business.

Much of Bodycote's business is concluded within 24 hours of sample receipt.
This places a high demand on operational efficiency and is the reason that
Bodycote developed a partnership with ECC.

ECC first developed a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) for
Bodycote in 1990 and the system is now widely used within the Group.  LIMS
provides the tools for order entry, control of sample identification,
production planning, certification, management reporting and invoicing.  ECC
and Bodycote have progressively developed LIMS as the Group's demands have
broadened through laboratory acquisition and expansion.  LIMS has been a
rock-solid system for Bodycote, reliability has been excellent and ECC have
always responded when emergencies have arisen.

The advent of the Internet and e-commerce saw Bodycote and ECC develop a new
system for order entry and reporting.  The Global On-line Laboratory
Database (GOLD), provided clients with the option of order entry through the
Bodycote web site and a means of results delivery by email for immediate
download into the client's production system.  This pioneering system is
being further developed at the moment.

Bodycote recently outsourced its IT management and systems support to ECC
and now have a permanent ECC presence at the Group's headquarters.  Bodycote
wishes ECC well with its ongoing expansion and looks forward to continuing a
successful relationship.

The Company
Bodycote Materials Testing Group Limited (BMT) is a major division of
Bodycote International plc, an organisation which operates globally and is
listed on the London Stock Exchange with an authorised share capital
approaching £1bn.

Their market-leading Materials Testing Division provides a high-quality
commercial testing service to various industry sectors including metal
technology, pharmacy and consumer goods.  The "finished product" of BMT is a
test certificate, which the customer uses to guarantee the quality of his
products or services.  Organisations may only issue these certificates if
they are accredited by local standards bodies, such as the National Physical
Laboratory in the UK.

The potential ramifications of making mistakes in collecting or publishing
test data are huge and growing.  In an increasingly quality-conscious world,
the role of independent commercial testing organisations such as BMT is now
of key importance to the manufacturing and service sectors.

The Business Need and Potential
ECC's first contribution to improvement in operation at BMT was the design,
development and deployment of a comprehensive Laboratory Information
Management System (LIMS) to handle the business-critical computing functions
of the organisation.  This system has improved dramatically the turnaround
time and integration of data in 18 locations around the World, including 5
in the United States.  Sales transactions from the system are collected and
electronically posted to four nodal accounting centres for subsequent credit
control.

The Solution
ECC foresaw the role that electronic commerce could play in such a business
process, and set about designing a solution that takes data from BMT
branches globally, queues it to a central WWW server based in the UK (a
mirror is soon to be installed in the USA), from where it can be retrieved
by customers via secure means.  Queuing of data in the opposite direction is
also supported, enabling customers to pass order requirements to their local
BMT branch, either as raw data or through web-based interaction.

Giving customers on-line access to over 400,000 historical test certificates
via an intuitive web browser interface, has presented BMT with a significant
competitive advantage, reduced costs and helped tie in customers.

The Technology
By utilising the latest active server technology, this data-driven site is
virtually maintenance-free, with no staff within BMT dedicated to running
it.

A key factor in the success of this system is its underlying multi-tier
design.  It is structured around a reusable set of software components
designed by ECC which fuel Win32, Web Browser and Microsoft Office user
interfaces.  These software components are also made available to BMT's own
customers, allowing them swiftly to build high-availability systems capable
of seamlessly integrating with this ground-breaking e-business platform.

The Value and Benefit
This approach provides a level of customer service that no other worldwide
materials testing company can match. On 13 July 1999 the Financial Times ran
an article indicating that shares rose 6p due to this ECC solution
(equivalent to over £18m).