Hamilton, is renowned for its quality laboratory solutions. The leading manufacturer of precision liquid handling and measuring devices was founded in the late 1940s. It currently has operations in over 22 locations and is headquartered in Switzerland.
Besides the design, development, and manufacturing of precision medical devices, Hamilton also offers automated liquid handling equipment, and sample management solutions. The company was looking for a simple, user-friendly, no-code integration and EDI solution. Another checkpoint on their priorities was to find a solution that had Microsoft Dynamics 365 business logic built-in and could reduce the time, effort, and resources in setting up and managing integrations, data transfers, and EDI. And they opted for STAEDEAN’s Integration and EDI solution as our solutions ticked all these boxes.
Software and Service: EDI and Integration Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management
Country: Switzerland
Industry: Manufacturing
Company size: 1900 employees
Why did Hamilton need a solution?
Prior to migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365 F&SCM), Hamilton was using a development-based solution. This meant a week for data transfer or a couple of months for an integration. After implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM, they could consider using the standard Microsoft Data Management framework. But that was time intensive as they had to add additional logic to existing data entities or create new data entities and use development. They were looking for a user-friendly solution that reduced the dependency they had on developers and improved the time taken for their integration, data transfer, and EDI processes using D365 F&SCM.
What were the key criteria?
- Had the Microsoft Dynamics 365 business logic built-in
- No code, and reduced development time and effort
- Meets requirements for future interfaces
- EDI functionalities for Dynamics 365
- User-friendly so that consultants could use it with a bit of training
Why did Hamilton choose STAEDEAN’s EDI and integration solutions?
The EDI and integration solutions from STAEDEAN reduced the time to go live with integrations and EDI messages and offered a user-friendly no-code interface that made data management within D365 F&SCM easier for their team. Since STAEDEAN’s solutions are embedded in Dynamics 365 F&SCM, their team could manage EDI exceptions and data validations without leaving the Dynamics environment. The solutions also offered them history management and staging tables that made it easier to handle data validations. Additionally, our solution made it possible to move transactional data in and out of Microsoft Dynamics 365 without using code
The fact that STAEDEAN’s solutions are an add-on module within Microsoft Dynamics 365 made it a more attractive choice for Hamilton. Since our STAEDEAN solutions are embedded and use the same business logic, they offer a familiar user experience and make it easier for teams to get trained and started quickly.
How have our EDI and integration solutions benefitted Hamilton?
Hamilton has been using STAEDEAN’s integration and EDI solutions since 2017, soon after they implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM. Prior to that any data import or export would need development and the creation of staging tables, set up of web services and form mapping required a lot of manual effort and even development. But using STAEDEAN’s embedded integration solution they could manage all of this and more, using simple configurations and an existing user interface.
Hamilton also found managing EDI a lot easier within Microsoft Dynamics 365 as error or exception management could be done within the ERP environment. Additionally, using STAEDEAN’s EDI solution there was no manual effort required to program the handler. STAEDEAN’s solutions also make it easier to manage data validations as the staging tables offered within the solution, allow the team to validate data, and update any incomplete or incorrect records before processing. This ensures a quicker order-to-sales cycle as well for the company.
“We like to use the history management feature in EDI Studio that logs all EDI transactions. We can move data to staging tables, perform validations in sales orders and pricing. It also helps us enable approvals, add rules and perform journal validations.”
– Maurus Deflorin, ICT Engineer, Hamilton
Some of the benefits that Hamilton saw after implementing STAEDEAN’s solutions
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Time taken for integrations such as CRM to Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP was cut down from 3 months to 20 days.
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The speed of implementation using configurations is about 3 times faster compared to development.
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Data import/export projects were completed within 1-2 hours, instead of a week.
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Supports multi-threading that can help optimize the integration and also increase processing speed for high-volume data.
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The solution enabled reusability which helped in automating certain processes.
“An ex-colleague asked me about how we handle integrations and data transfer, and I immediately told them about Connectivity Studio from STAEDEAN (formerly To-Increase). He trusted my recommendation, and I assured him that he wouldn't regret it. When discussing solutions, I always start by understanding the problem. For example, with tasks like transferring data between companies and data validation, Connectivity Studio makes it incredibly straightforward. Whether it's data migration, importing from XML, CSV, or XLS documents, the platform simplifies the process without needing a developer. It's all configuration-based, which means even non-technical users can handle it efficiently."
-Fanol Sula, ERP Senior Application Developer, Hamilton
For more details on how our EDI and integration solutions helped Hamilton speed up integrations, data imports, and exports, and simplify EDI communication in Microsoft Dynamics 365, download our case study from the link below.
