VWR Scientific Products Application Story

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VWR Scientific Brings Catalog to the Web Through Host-to-Web Integration

To do business on the World Wide Web, companies can start from scratch with new applications, or find a way to leverage their existing programs. Neither approach is easy. But leveraging existing mainframe applications can be far more productive than many companies expect.

VWR Scientific Products is a case in point. In May, the West Chester, Penn., company opened its web site (www.VWRSP.com) for on-line ordering over the web. Customers had been able to place on-line orders in the past, but information was limited.

"Today, we have rich content data -- product photos, descriptions and specifications -- along with real-time inventory updates and custom pricing information," says Barry Carney, manager of web development for VWR. "Those are all things we just couldn't accomplish on the mainframe."

What customers see and interact with is an enhanced web page, developed with the ViewMax host-to-web integration tool from MODCOMP Inc. (www.modcomp.com). But at VWR's end, the transactions are actually taking place in a legacy on-line ordering application that resides on its IBM mainframe.

Bridging the two systems required only a month -- a fraction of the time required for in-house development. Adam Bauman, director of emerging technology for VWR, recalls working at a motion picture studio that was connecting a Windows NT environment to a legacy system written in COBOL. "It was a painful process that took three months and about 100 people," he says. "Here, the team was three people from VWR, and an outside agency of less than 10."

Unique Challenges: 200,000 SKUs, Customized Customer Profiles
What made the web-to-mainframe integration especially challenging in VWR's case is the nature of VWR's business. VWR provides lab and clean room supplies, chemicals and scientific equipment. It operates as a one-stop shopping center for such products, serving educational institutions and industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to semiconductors. Its product list includes more than 200,000 different items representing 2,000 suppliers.

"Distribution is our core competency," Carney explains. "We don't manufacture anything, but we fulfill more than 97 percent of orders by the next day. Our value proposition to customers is that we will deliver what they need in a day, so they don't have to maintain a huge inventory."

VWR works closely with customers to get a thorough understanding of the items they need, and when and where they need them. Carney says VWR can save some customers 70 percent in inventory and procurement costs as a result.

Because customers turn to VWR for so many different items, they negotiate their own contracts. Each customer has its own pricing profile. In fact, there are 2.5 million different pricing combinations available to VWR customers. And therein lies the rub for any on-line order system, whether it's a traditional mainframe application or a new web-based system.

"In the past, our on-line ordering application was showing people the list price, and we told them, 'your pricing will apply when the order goes through,'" Carney explains. "But they wanted to see their pricing. And not seeing it was enough of a barrier to affect their purchasing decisions.

"They also wanted to know if the item they wanted was in stock. But because it was a batch ordering system, the on-line application couldn't tell them."

Today, the VWR web site provides what the legacy application couldn't: current information on inventory and, most important, each customer's pricing. So when a scientist from ABC company logs in, he sees one set of prices; when someone from XYZ company logs in, they see a different set of prices.

Here's how it works: the customer logs into the web site and builds an on-line order using a screen from the site. In the background ViewMax, which resides on the web server, seamlessly logs onto the company's IBM 9021 mainframe, enters the customer ID number and product numbers, retrieves the appropriate pricing, and embeds that data in the HTML page. All of this occurs in a matter of seconds, without the customer experiencing any degradation in performance. The list of items a customer orders is called the customer's "shopping basket." When the order is complete, it is billed to a purchase order or credit card (American Express, Visa, or Mastercard).

The web system allows VWR to personalize its service in other ways, too. For example, a customer's profile may include a list of the items it has ordered in the past. When the customer goes to the order screen, there is a list of items he or she is most likely to order again -- a "favorites" list. Of course, customers can also browse the catalog to look for new items, or use the built-in search engine.

Also, based on a customer's past purchases, VWR can "push" information about new products that might be of interest. When a beaker manufacturer comes out with a new size or variation on its established product line, VWR can send product information to beaker customers via e-mail, or through a bulletin on its web page that only pops up for selected buyers.

Web ordering also lends itself to promotions and bundling. Traditionally, a rebate offer would be promoted through direct mail. Then the customer would buy the product, fill out a rebate form and send it in. VWR would have to process the rebate form to issue the rebate. Now, the web server can automatically examine each customer's shopping basket and, before concluding a transaction, alert customers to special offers. The web page might advise the customer they're eligible for a rebate, or a "buy two, get one free" offer.

Slow-moving inventory can be promoted on a special sale page. "We looked at what Lands' End was doing on its page, and decided they had a great idea. We've had great success with this approach and we didn't have to print $2 million worth of coupons to do it."

Selecting, Implementing a Solution
Carney says VWR was convinced that the Internet could be a gold mine, but wanted a solution that would leverage a legacy system built on 30 years of customer transactions and experience.

"The web is a great equalizer. You can have a UNIX workstation or a Macintosh or an old PC. It doesn't matter, as long as you can run a web browser," he continues.

"When I was involved in multi-media development, we always had to be worried about what kind of computer was available, how much RAM did it have, did it have color capabilities and a sound card, etc. The list went on and on. With the web, requirements are minimal and most of our customers are already web capable."

VWR purposely avoided solutions that involved JAVA applets, huge 7 Mb plug-ins, or supported PC clients but not Mac or UNIX users. The company wanted universal access and minimal programming. When VWR representatives met with MODCOMP officials at Electronic Commerce World's trade show in Philadelphia last September, they realized they had found their solution. "We chose ViewMax because it let us use our legacy environment without revising any of the mainframe code," says Carney.

Implementing ViewMax involved using its application programmer interface (API) to create a datastream handler for the customer shopping basket. The web site was already designed to pull the list price from an Oracle database, so the datastream handler simply pulled the customized customer pricing from the mainframe.

When the process was complete, VWR "stress tested" the new web-based ordering application. "We simulated 75 to 100 simultaneous sessions, so we're confident that it supports the type of web traffic we have today and foresee in the near future," Bauman says.

Mark Robillard, VWR's vice president for commerce, says a web presence offers important advantages over traditional EDI systems. "EDI had some interest for customers, but never really caught on in our marketplace," he explains. "EDI is a store-and-forward technology. The customer takes your electronic catalog, puts it in their own environment, and sends orders in."

The logistics of that process are inappropriate for VWR's transaction-intensive business, he says. R&D is centered on occasional purchases, few of which are repetitive. Customers didn't want the extensive VWR catalog clogging up their computer systems; but without it, they didn't really know what was available.

With its web solution, VWR maintains responsibility for the on-line catalog. That's a major responsibility, since the catalog database has 50 additions, deletions or changes a day. It includes both what VWR has printed in book form in the past, which accounts for 65,000 SKUs, as well as another 200,000 SKUs that there just hasn't been room for in the print edition. "The web catalog is four times bigger than our print catalog," Robillard says. "We're very proud of that."

Customers can log into the web page, view the catalog, get the information they need, and either place an order or leave. That points out another advantage of the web solution: giving "window shoppers" a place to browse without tying up live customer service representatives.

Today VWR has 450 customer service reps who take orders by phone. It estimates the web page handles 2.5 weeks of call center volume. Today, Robillard says, web ordering accounts for less than 2 percent of the company's sales volume. Within five years, he expects electronic commerce (including other systems, such as automated telephony) to account for 40 to 50 percent of VWR's business.

Web ordering has taken off fastest in the office supply market. There, Robillard says, secretaries have the technology at the desktop and are inclined to use it. Since scientists are often away from their desks, that market lags behind. "Right now, the market is in its infancy," Robillard says. "But as more web-accustomed scientists come out of school, that will change."

Future: Move to Client/Server Architecture
Customer feedback about the site has been encouraging. A chemist, having retrieved material safety data sheets (MSDSs) from the web site, left a message that he had just saved three days time. One major company said it was targeting 60 percent of its orders to be placed with VWR over the Internet in 1998.

Though the web ordering project was developed to work with VWR's mainframe, the company is actually on the verge of moving from that mainframe to client/server technology. The web system shouldn't require much work, however. Says Adam Bauman, "We set a good foundation with the MODCOMP product. Moving to client/server means we just deploy that asset in a different way, to continue to provide information on demand for our web customers."

Among the advantages: real-time response. The mainframe today batches orders in one-hour cycles. It's possible (though rare) that inventory information on the web site is up to 59 minutes out of date. The client/server architecture will give VWR customers a true real-time view of inventory.

Robillard says the company will continue to emphasize a customized experience. "We're using our web site to supply not just the products that our customers need, but also the information they need to decide whether a product is suitable," he says. "Increasingly, we're going to be in the product information business, as well as the product distribution business."

As with all web sites, the initial push to launch the site and its on-line ordering capabilities is just the tip of the iceberg. Maintaining the site will mean not simply updating the catalog, but adding or changing features based on customer responses. Carney says 80 percent of what's available on the web site is based on customer feedback. There is a full-time customer service representative devoted to handling Internet requests and e-mail.

"If we're doing our job right, the web site will never be more than 95 percent complete," he says. "We're always going to be making changes and improvements."