4-page Case Study - Posted 8/7/2006

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Stora Enso

Leading Paper Manufacturer Automates Paper Assessment and Business Processes

Stora Enso is a global market leader in newsprint, magazine, and fine paper products. In 2001, the company’s Langerbrugge Mill, in Ghent, Belgium, underwent a major assets restructuring project, which greatly expanded paper mill production capacity. As a result, the mill needed to share data more quickly and fully automate its business processes. The mill chose Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2000 to integrate its applications, systems, and paper quality measuring devices. To help with ongoing application development, the mill uses solvIT, an integration consultancy company. The mill recently upgraded to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. The solution has increased process automation and improved customer satisfaction and paper quality assessment. In addition, issues are resolved more quickly, and integrations can be developed in record time.

Situation

Stora Enso is an integrated paper, packaging, and forest products company, producing publication and fine paper, packaging board, and wood products—all areas in which the company is a global market leader. Stora Enso sales totaled €13.2 billion (U.S.$16.7 billion) in 2005. The company has some 46,000 employees in more than 40 countries on five continents. Stora Enso is committed to sustainability—economic, environmental, and social responsibility underpins the company’s approach to every aspect of doing business.

The company’s Langerbrugge Mill, a newsprint and magazine paper facility in Ghent, Belgium, creates paper with recovered fiber. It

We don’t have to worry about recalls anymore. We have the quality data we need when we need it. Peter Colpaert, Project Manager, Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill

In 2001, the mill invested €500 million (U.S.$639 million) to rebuild its paper machines. The goals were to improve production capacity, meet growing quality and volume demands, and increase industry competitiveness. The mill also added a new paper machine with an annual capacity of 400,000 tons. The paper machine is one of the largest in the world and the largest to use completely recycled paper as raw material. The investment project also increased another machine’s production capacity to 165,000 tons annually.

The greatly improved production capacity resulted in a need for equivalent upgrades to Langerbrugge’s technology systems. Specifically, the mill sorely needed to share data between its many business applications in real time. At the time the machines were being upgraded, no applications—including sales, scheduling, production, and transportation—were integrated. This compromised the ability to respond to business inquiries in a timely manner. For example, the mill was pressed to promptly respond to customer and sales queries—the data needed to make accurate commitments, such as current inventory, capacities, and forecast schedules, was locked in a variety of applications. Langerbrugge was concerned that this was not only producing too much manual labor, but that it also was costing potential business.

Similarly, increased production capacity highlighted a need to connect the data collected by paper quality measuring appliances to mill applications. Printing out quality reports from off-line appliances and rekeying data into applications were no longer acceptable. The quality statistics the devices collect—such as density, color, grams, moisture, holes, spots, and irregularities—determine if a paper roll is fit to leave the mill for delivery. Langerbrugge Mill needed a system that would transmit quality data to applications in real time, helping the mill to meet its commitments more efficiently.

Solution

In 2001, Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill turned to Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2000, a business process management server that connects and integrates disparate applications, systems, and technologies. By connecting each application to BizTalk Server, data from different sources can be shared in real time. Management also chose the product for its ability to optimize, automate, and monitor business processes. In addition, the solution would enable the mill to design custom adapters using the Microsoft .NET Framework and Visual Studio® .NET development system—Langerbrugge’s development tools of choice.
 
To help it realize its vision of totally automated systems, Langerbrugge hired a one-man consultancy company, solvIT, based in Laarne, Belgium. Gregory Van de Wiele of solvIT specializes in .NET development and integration technologies, and is a BizTalk Server Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

Over time, the mill would upgrade to later versions of BizTalk Server. Initially, the first two major integration projects were completed with BizTalk Server 2000. First, solvIT helped the mill to integrate its many internal applications—including its MIS Honeywell OptiVISION, and GE Proficy Order-to-Cash and quality reporting applications. Then, paper quality measuring devices were connected to applications by means of BizTalk Server.

The new BizTalk Adapter framework makes it easy to create custom adapters and connect every application, or any transport, in record time. Gregory Van de Wiele, solvIT

The Langerbrugge Mill recently upgraded to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. The enhanced developer tools and flat file schema generation have been instrumental in helping solvIT to customize adaptors to integrate systems and technologies. The business process modeling features of BizTalk Server also figure prominently in the mill’s automated business process strategy. Other feature enhancements of BizTalk Server 2006 currently used by the mill include better setup and migration; application management and deployment using “containers”; and a new graphical Administration Console, which enables easy process monitoring across servers.

Benefits

BizTalk Server has helped Langerbrugge Mill achieve near total process automation—distinguishing it among industry competition. Customer satisfaction and paper quality assessment are much improved, issues are resolved faster, and solutions are developed in record time. 

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Because all systems at Langerbrugge Mill share data in real time, personnel can attend to customers more promptly. Now, customers are informed of projected schedules, delivery dates, pricing, and other details, the moment they inquire. This improves customer satisfaction and reduces manual labor at the mill. “Langerbrugge Mill is one of the most optimized and automated paper mills in the world,” says Colpaert. “BizTalk Server is a big part of the automatic process.”

Real-Time Data Sharing

Integrations between paper quality measuring devices and software applications have enabled the mill to assess paper quality in real time. Previously, employees would read printouts from lab devices and manually enter averages into target applications. Quality statistics were often unavailable by the time the delivery truck needed to leave the mill. Now, “By the time the paper roll hits the winder,” Colpaert says, “the quality data is already available. It happens in real time.” The data is more complete as well. Integrations through BizTalk Server have eliminated recalls resulting from loading paper onto trucks before knowing quality. “We don’t have to worry about recalls anymore,” says Colpaert. “We have the quality data we need when we need it.”

Faster Issue Resolution

The new graphical Administration Console of BizTalk Server 2006 is helping the mill to diagnose and respond to process failures more quickly and effectively. With the console, administrators can monitor the health of their BizTalk group at an overview level, manage applications selectively, and investigate specific issues for more information. Stora Enso Langerbrugge is also using BizTalk Server 2006 administrative features to build process failure alerts and resubmit failed messages. “Whereas previously it could take hours or days to diagnose and respond to situations,” says Colpaert, “We now spend a lot less time with diagnostics. We get clear descriptions of what is happening, and we can resolve problems faster.”

More Powerful Development

The powerful prepackaged development features of BizTalk Server greatly reduce the necessity for custom coding. The ability to develop in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET and deploy integrations into BizTalk Server makes development very efficient. Gregory Van de Wiele of solvIT has been creating implementations with BizTalk Server since 2000. He says, “The new BizTalk Adapter framework makes it easy to create custom adapters and connect every application, or any transport, in record time.” 

The solution is expected to continue to play a critical role in the company’s ongoing success. Currently, the mill is expanding its use of BizTalk Server 2006 to develop a new Logistics Service Center (LSC) application, which is focused on optimizing the mill’s transportation logistics. The LSC is projected to debut in October 2006.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
BizTalk Server 2006, part of the Microsoft Windows Server System, empowers businesses to more efficiently build, manage and optimize mission critical business process automation solutions spanning applications, people and organizations. BizTalk Server 2006 delivers unique, integrated tools to IT professionals and developers, as well as business analysts that help reduce complexity and achieve new levels of agility in business process design and optimization. With enhanced and simplified deployment, configuration, and management capabilities and a seamless upgrade experience from BizTalk Server 2004, BizTalk Server 2006 provides organizations with a comprehensive, integrated product to manage the next generation of adaptive business process automation solutions.

For more information about BizTalk Server 2006, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about solvIT Consulting products and services, call +32 (0) 475 93 28 43.

For more information about Stora Enso and Langerbrugge Mill products and services, call +32 92 57 72 11 or visit the Web site at:
www.storaenso.com

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Microsoft, BizTalk, Visual Studio, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.