Infor announced that Linea Light Group, a prestigious Italian brand of professional LED lighting and design, has implemented Infor LN as part of a digital transformation strategy. The objective of the project, which was managed by Infor partner 2WS, was to redefine the group’s information processes for better business management of its individual branches for sales.
Founded in 1976, with headquarters in the province of Treviso, Linea Light Group specialises in the design and production of lighting systems and solutions for indoor and outdoor environments. Among the first companies in Europe to specialise in LED technology and with over 550 employees, its production activities are located in Italy, with two operational offices in Treviso, and hubs in USA and China for localized manufacturing service. The commercial activities are managed by various branches and agencies throughout Europe, the Far East and Asia, with some of them also dealing with warehouse management activities.
The ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution used by Linea Light Group in Italy, based on an IBM AS/400, was disconnected from the various systems in use in the group’s branches and agencies. The company needed to define a business management model common to all subsidiaries in order to harmonize operational activities in all foreign countries in line with the head office; simplify access to data and have information tools capable of automating, streamlining and supporting intra-group activities.
Linea Light Group identified Infor LN as an ERP solution ideally suited to the needs of manufacturing companies. 2WS supported Linea Light Group throughout the decision-making and implementation phases of the project.
The Infor LN implementation was based on the definition of core models, developed for each type of branch and agency in the group, according to their specific business needs. Different models have been defined for the management of a commercial branch (reseller), for the management of an agency and, finally, for the management of a branch that also deals with warehouse management.
Process standardization, integration and simplification are among the main results achieved by Linea Light Group following the deployment of Infor LN. Since implementing a common business management model, the company has obtained better visibility of internal information with immediately accessible data. This, in turn, has enabled the company to automate and streamline intra-group activities.
The project, still in progress, began with the first commercial branch model in the UK, followed by implementation of the agency model. After launching Infor LN in its UK and Singapore offices, the branch model was developed during 2019 by integrating the functionalities for warehouse management activities for the offices in France and Poland, which started using Infor LN in 2020. Deployment extended next to the branch in Germany, in addition to the completion of finance areas in Singapore and the UK.
To meet the need for integration and automation of the data flows of branches and agencies to and from corporate, an interface was developed to integrate Infor LN with Linea Light Italy’s AS/400-based system. During the spring of 2020, Infor LN was integrated with the company’s business intelligence solution to allow the complete analysis of ‘sell-out’ and ‘sell-in’ for all branches that use the ERP.
Furthermore, the Infor ION integration technology used to link Infor LN with the AS/400 system in use by corporate has made it possible to automate intra-company flows by exploiting the standard business object documents (BODs) available for importing and exporting business partners, price lists, articles, sales offers, purchase orders and payable invoices.
The main features that highlight the value of Infor LN are the usability of the system, the multilingual management, the visibility of highly profiled data and the search for information.
In the future, Linea Light Group plans to optimise the general model and evaluate the extension of Infor LN to other foreign branches and agencies, such as Dubai, Russia and Spain, as well as to the Italian commercial agencies in the group. This will be done based on the already defined business models, ultimately, with a view to optimise operational, logistical and administrative flows.
"Infor LN represents an important opportunity for the group," said Manuel Minute, Linea Light Group’s CIO. "It will allow the company to embrace the digital transformation necessary to better manage its worldwide operations by providing visibility and reinforcing control and support from the headquarters. The ‘wave’ project planning approach allows us to obtain benefits incrementally, adding further features each time and implementing the system at a sustainable pace."
“We are pleased to support a ‘made in Italy’ brand such as Linea Light Group. Our innovative technology, together with the great experience and professionalism of 2WS, have provided the agility and flexibility Linea Light Group needed to centralize control of the business and better integrate its branches with the parent company," said Bruno Pagani, Infor sales director for Italy.
"We are honoured to support Linea Light Group, which is a front runner in its pursuit of excellence. It has chosen Infor LN for digitalisation and standardisation of processes — an ERP perfectly suited to its industry — whilst relying on the competence and professionalism of 2WS,” concluded Giorgio Borgogno, 2WS managing partner.
