SEEBURGER BIS Consolidates EDI Operations for Magna International; 20 of 242 Plants on Four Continents Now Live & Managed Centrally

ATLANTA--SEEBURGER Inc. today announced the selection of its core business-to-business integration platform to consolidate disparate EDI systems at up to 242 plants operated by Magna International, one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world. EDI operations for participating plants are being centrally deployed and hosted by a shared IT services team at Magna using the SEEBURGER Business Integration Server (BIS), eliminating EDI duties at individual sites and enabling 24x7 monitoring to ensure compliance with OEM requirements.

Magna's EDI consolidation project will be discussed in a February 17 webcast titled “Turbo Charge Your Trading Networks” that will be presented by AMR Research, Magna and SEEBURGER. The 10:00 am EST webcast will use Magna as an example of a company that is lowering costs and improving trading partner relationships by standardizing on a single EDI/B2B gateway. Enrollment is available here.

“The impetus for offering a centrally managed EDI system was the need to provide 24x7 monitoring of customer orders and release notices. This is a particularly critical issue for Just-in-Sequence plants located on OEM premises, where the turnaround time between receiving and shipping an order is as little as two hours,” said Kurt Siegl, Director of IT & Finance Projects, Magna International Europe AG. “Our individual production centers don't have 24x7 IT coverage, but merging our EDI operations into a central SEEBURGER installation makes it possible to monitor EDI communications across all time zones through our global IT resources.”

The project is also yielding a significant reduction in EDI-related IT expenses, including software licenses, hardware and message mappings, as well as reducing penalties for non-adherence to customer service level agreements (SLAs) associated with missed messages or deadlines. Additional savings are being achieved by using SEEBURGER’s web-based Roll-Out Portal for self-serve trading partner testing and recertification, eliminating the need for Magna IT staff to handle partner onboarding.

To date, 20 Magna plants in North America, Europe, South Africa and Asia/Pacific have replaced on-site EDI installations from different vendors – including SEEBURGER - with the SEEBURGER BIS being centrally managed by Magna's Shared Services Group. The system currently handles more than 500 trading partners and 50,000 daily messages. Magna expects to have 70 plants online by the end of 2010.

Each plant's existing ERP system is connected to the SEEBURGER gateway over the company WAN for full integration with advance shipping notifications and other EDI messages. This strategy supports Magna's highly decentralized corporate culture, in which the company's independent operating units and individual locations are permitted to maintain the ERP and EDI systems of their choice.

SEEBURGER's ability to integrate with disparate ERP systems was a key factor in Magna's adoption of the BIS platform, along with SEEBURGER's support for global messaging and communications protocols, local-language support and training capabilities in every country where Magna is located, and Magna's own prior experience with SEEBURGER technology at many individual plants.

The self-service trading partner recertification capabilities of the SEEBURGER Roll-Out Portal also contributed to Magna’s decision because of the massive time savings for Magna IT personnel. The portal automates the testing and certification processes for both EDI message documents and communications methodologies, allowing an organization’s customers and suppliers to perform these functions online rather than tying up Magna's own IT resources.

“Global consolidation is taking different forms at different companies. At Magna, the focus is on EDI without ERP, and they are able to use their existing Shared Services Group to manage the merged EDI operations,” said Bill Metallo, VP of Sales at SEEBURGER. “This implementation highlights the versatility of the SEEBURGER platform in adapting to the needs of different organizations, our ability to support businesses virtually anywhere on the globe and scale to virtually unlimited message volumes, and the role of our Roll-Out Portal in streamlining trading partner enablement.”

Implementation To Be Discussed in February 17 Webcast with AMR Research.

About SEEBURGER

SEEBURGER is a leading provider of global business integration solutions designed to optimize transactions throughout the extended enterprise by automating trading relationships with all partners regardless of their size and technical resources. Launched in 1986 to provide integration solutions to the automotive industry in Germany, the company today is ranked among the top business-to-business gateway providers by leading industry analysts, and serves more than 7,500 customers in more than 50 countries and more than 15 industries through its flagship Business Integration Server and related products and services. SEEBURGER has global offices in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America, including a U.S. office that opened in 1998. For more information, visit www.SEEBURGER.com.