Mission
Mitsui (41,761 employees, 160 offices in 68 countries) taps an expanding global network to access strategic information and harness business engineering capabilities. Main businesses include sales, manufacture, export / import, international trade and services in the following fields: metal products and minerals, machinery, electronics and information, chemicals, energy, consumer products and services ―retail, foods, textiles & fashion, general merchandise and various services, and financial markets and logistics & transportation. Mitsui is also diversifying services, exploring for and developing natural resources, making commercial investments, developing technologies in new businesses and much more.

http://www.mitsui.co.jp/en/

Testimonial
“By selecting WorkflowGen we were able to spend less than 12 months from the tool selection to the production. The development efficiency of the workflow definition and the .Net Web Forms is very high. The concept of the WorkflowGen product is excellent: it enables the focus on the workflow function, it’s robust design facilitates the quick implementation of new functions, it leverages the core Web technologies (.NET, XML, RSS Feed, Web Services, etc.), the degree of flexibility of development on the user side is high, the cost performance is also good.
The tool is easy to use, the design and various settings of WorkflowGen are intuitive and comprehensible. WorkflowGen offers convenient ready to use components. The user interface is refined, and the usability is high.
WorkflowGen facilitates the customization of all aspects of the workflows (routing, email notifications). Advantys the vendor of WorkflowGen showed flexibility and responsiveness to our specific requirements and the Help Desk support was quick.” .

Masaki Takahiko
Global Information Systems Enhancement Dept.

Business Challenge
As a global corporation Mitsui wanted to implement the next generation Business Process Management system in order to standardize trading subsidiaries business processes, strengthen internal control and integrate with the new ERP system (SAP).
The scope of the deployment was global with a target of more than 70 sites in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
The initial roll-out included 7 companies in North America, 700 users, 500 requests/day and more than 40 processes.

WorkflowGen functional solution
WorkflowGen enables the users to easily perform 40+ business and accounting processes with a tight integration with SAP.

WorkflowGen technical solution
Mitsui has deployed WorkflowGen version 5 (with .Net Web Forms) including the following features:

- Real time integration with SAP (ECC 6.0)
- Real time synchronization with SAP of all 40 WorkflowGen .Net Web Forms.
- Real-time update processing from WorkflowGen to SAP
- Single Sign On via the SAP Enterprise Portal
- Task list display on SAP Enterprise Portal (via RSS feeds)
- Web Farm Architecture with load balancing
- Time zone Management (Time zone setting by user by location)
- User Synchronization (User information is synchronized with user database of authorization hierarchy at job starts)
- Form configuration synchronization with Add-on Tables
- Dynamic Selection of line managers

Benefits
Internal control strengthening
About 40 business processes were standardized with WorkflowGen to meet the requirements of internal control such as efficient process, strict access control, storing vouchers, and monitoring (internal audit).

Efficiency of communication between organizations
Instructions to SSC from remote locations of each company were integrated into WorkflowGen, and the whole business process became more efficient.

Real time integration with SAP
End users can access and register SAP data from WorkflowGen in real-time without logging on to SAP manually.
SAP menu and WorkflowGen menu were integrated into SAP Enterprise Portal, and thus users can access both functions without knowing the difference.
By defining user interface and workflow routing on WorkflowGen and business logic on SAP, the maintenance of the whole system became more flexible.

Fast implementation
About 40 workflow forms were implemented with effective functions and technologies including SAP integration in a short period of time (12 months).
Ease of development, customized training, and quick online support greatly contributed to the success.