Background
Mattingly Foods, Inc., a family owned food service wholesaler which has been in business since 1947, will approach $250 million in sales this year and is expecting to grow to $400 million in the next 3 years.

Mattingly Foods specializes in delivering frozen, refrigerated and dry foods to chain restaurant accounts in a 19 state region from their 250,000 square foot warehouse facility in Zanesville, Ohio. Mattingly's annual revenues have doubled in the past 3 years due to changes in the nature of the food distribution business. Many national chains had been reliant on national food distributors to deliver to their multiple locations. After the bankruptcy of one of the leading national distributors, many of these chains made the decision to work with regional suppliers. By using multiple regional distributors, a national restaurant chain can limit its exposure in the event that one of its distributors discontinues service. Mattingly Foods was a beneficiary of this shift in business.

Challenge
In order to accommodate such rapid growth, Mattingly's management team realized that changes needed to be made to the company’s technology infrastructure. Michael Montgomery, Mattingly's V.P. Finance, explains that the company's “current technology was developed in the late '80’s and early '90’s. An internal decision was made to bring our systems up to current technological standards.”

In 2001, the search began for an ERP system. A commercial package, designed specifically for food distributors, was chosen. Unfortunately the project did not proceed smoothly. States Montgomery, “the vendor was great at billing us, but not great at completing the work.” The vendor was subsequently fired.

A study was commissioned to review the feasibility of building a system versus licensing an existing package. The result of this build vs. buy assessment led Montgomery and his IT staff to the conclusion that building a system to the company’s specifications was the path to follow. The decision was based on the following criteria:

1. Time to Market: Mattingly had some high priority areas that needed be addressed immediately. The pain, effort and uncertainty (both time and expense) associated with the implementation of a “global” packaged solution in a short time might have outweighed the benefits associated with short-term deployment. A custom approach would allow Mattingly to implement a solution in logical phases, one module or group of modules at a time. This would enable the most urgent needs, or areas that stand to benefit most from a new solution, to be addressed first.

2. Technology: With a custom solution, Mattingly can choose the technology that best fits its needs.

3. Functionality/Fit: As a custom solution would be developed specifically to conform to Mattingly's specifications, it should automate the business processes more effectively than a generic packaged solution.

4. Risk: The level of risk associated with a software package is based largely on the costs incurred prior to the time the system is in production mode. With a custom development project, expenses are incurred over time, as each phase of the project gets addressed. Mattingly also has control over what is included in each project phase. Each phase of the project should include monthly deliverables and milestones against which progress can be measured, allowing risk to be minimized.

Solution
Mattingly chose Chariot Solutions to design, develop and implement its next generation of core business systems. Chariot consultants had developed and were currently supporting Mattingly's accounting software. Having worked together for a number of years placed Chariot in a position of trust that the previous vendor had failed to achieve. “Since 1997, we have maintained a very close relationship with Mattingly Foods,” claims Michael Rappaport, Chariot’s CEO. “Our organizations have a lot in common. We share unwavering dedication to customer service, and the commitment to operate an honest business.”

The new system had to consider the low gross margins that are inherent in the food distribution industry. It was therefore important for the system to provide the most cost effective, streamlined processes to support Mattingly's business. The technology that was chosen had to be current and not become obsolete in a few years. The system would also need to be easily maintainable. Lastly, due to Mattingly's IT environment, the chosen solution would need to be portable across multiple operating systems and platforms.

According to Aaron Mulder, Chariot's Chief Technology Officer, “it was clear to us that the best technology for this project was Java, because of its flexibility, portability and the ease with which it can coexist with dissimilar systems.”

Implementing a solution using Java provided many advantages over other languages. One of the most important is Java's portability. Since Java runs on virtually all hardware platforms, Mattingly would not be tied to a single vendor or type of equipment. The IT department already had multiple Sun/Solaris machines, as well as several Windows-based personal computers. The only acquisition necessary to run the project would be a Java application server. Also, since the language is not proprietary, a Java-based system would be easier to maintain. Finally, as Java has become the standard technology for software development, the required resources can easily be secured to support the system.

Java, more specifically Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), provides a strong foundation for enterprise software applications with many features that are already built in. By taking advantage of these features, the software can be developed and maintained more efficiently.

Java is well suited for the modular approach Mattingly is pursuing because it allows specific modules to be implemented and tightly integrated with the company's other systems - despite the fact the those systems are based on antiquated technology. Therefore the new software can be effectively implemented in phases, while working in harmony with the legacy systems.

Technologies such as the J2EE connector architecture, Web Services, and XML will help Mattingly facilitate integration with any third-party packages or homegrown software. Also, many of its’ new clients are requiring closer communication between their internal systems and Mattingly's. This new component for B2B transactions could be easily handled through J2EE and Web Services.

Results
The project has been successful. The first phase was implemented in January, with work on Phase II beginning in February. There are regular status updates and phone conferences between Mattingly and Chariot. Montgomery and his staff continue to be impressed with Chariot's complete understanding of the nuances of its food distribution business, and their ability to translate that knowledge into an easy-to-use and fully functional software application. States Montgomery, “our decision to have Chariot develop and implement our next generation of software has already paid impressive dividends. Each phase of the implementation directly benefits Mattingly's bottom line.”