The Challenge
A Middleware Solution That Delivered all of Dunlop Requirements
During its major Salesforce rollout, Dunlop planned to integrate Salesforce with SAP. During the design phase, it became clear that what had been intended as middleware did not exist in the way the team expected. Salesforce pointed to their middleware solution as an additional purchase, which exponentially raised both cost and complexity concerns.
At the same time, Dunlop was relying on an in-house developed middleware tool to support international and domestic sales portals. It was an excellent temporary solution for the business, but they needed a long-term, enterprise-grade integration platform to support their needs.
Gerald Louis, Dunlop’s Information Systems Manager, went looking for alternatives. He found Flowgear online, reviewed material from CEO Daniel Chilcott, and thereafter met with Daniel, and an implementation partner before making the decision.
No connector, No clear path
“We reached the point in the Salesforce project where we asked, ‘Where is the connector that we were expecting?’ Salesforce pointed us to their middleware solution at an exponentially higher cost, and that’s when I went out to look for another platform and found Flowgear,” said Gerald Louis, Information Systems Manager at Dunlop Tyres South Africa.
From Scripts and Custom Code to enterprise middleware
“We moved from a homegrown middleware that I had built to Flowgear as our enterprise integration solution. Salesforce, Slimstock, our ePOD system, Payroll, and the MES now all run through Flowgear,” said Gerald Louis.
The Solution
Sales and Production Depend on Flowgear
Dunlop first adopted Flowgear to integrate Salesforce and SAP. It has since become the standard middleware for several key systems:
- Salesforce and SAP
- Sales Cloud CRM
- Commerce Cloud – Domestic sales portal
- Commerce Cloud – International dealer portal all integrated bi-directionally to SAP using SAP ECC nodes, IDocs, BAPIs, and database queries. Flowgear also streamlines how SAP’s fast-moving IDocs are delivered, allowing Salesforce to handle the load.
- Other connected systems
- Slimstock Demand and Supply planning
- Winfreight Electronic proof of delivery (ePOD)
- Payroll
- Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for lot assurance.
- Multiple Data Warehouses for Workflow, TnA, etc.
Flowgear now replaces the earlier in-house developed middleware and serves as Dunlop’s enterprise integration solution.
The Results
Sales And Production Depend On Flowgear
- Salesforce-driven sales would not flow seamlessly to and from SAP.
- Customers would stop receiving electronic PODs from the ePOD system, hampering our “Track and Trace” efforts.
- Demand planning and forecasting data into the plant would be disrupted.
- The MES lot assurance process would not have the capability to receive material from SAP.
Flowgear also absorbs some of the complexity that other systems cannot handle alone, particularly around the way SAP pushes data versus what receiving systems can process.
Critical to Sales and the Plant
“If Flowgear is switched off, no sales could flow through the normal route, customers would not receive their electronic PODs, and our MES integration from SAP to the plant simply doesn’t run. Flowgear is currently a mainstay for both our commercial and production processes,” said Gerald Louis.
Ready for POS, a new standard API, and S4 HANA
“We’re taking Flowgear into Dunlop dealer POS integrations via the TyreLink API, and as we move to S4 HANA in the next few years, Flowgear will remain our middleware of choice,” said Gerald Louis.
Looking Ahead
Dunlop Dealer POS, Our Very Own Standard API, and S4 HANA
- A Dunlop dealer POS integration project, extending automation into dealer point-of-sale systems.
- A future move from SAP ECC to S4 HANA, where existing Flowgear S4 HANA connectors position it to remain the middleware of choice.
- Launching their very own “TyreLink” API that would link seamlessly into any e-commerce portal, without sacrificing any of their cybersecurity requirements.
