Monsanto Co. www.monsanto.com
Improving Customer Order Accuracy and Predictability
Project Lead: Ann Ripp, IT U.S. Project Management Lead
Project Description: This agricultural product provider's Go-Ag supply-chain system is a homegrown service-oriented integration of several custom supply/demand applications and SAP R/3. Fine-tuned with custom Java code in areas where the XML mapping performance of webMethods Integration Server proved inefficient, the system aligns Monsanto's seed supply with proven grower demand by surfacing purchasing data six to nine months earlier than had the company's previous architecture.
Industry: Agriculture

MyThings.com www.mythings.com
Image Search Software Recovers Stolen Valuables
Project Lead: Ken Bouche, Vice President of Trace
Project Description: To help protect people and businesses from unknowingly buying stolen goods, MyThings.com developed Trace, a cross-category database of stolen valuables. Based on an infrastructure that includes ASP.Net, Windows 2003, Internet Information Server, and SQL Server, MyThings.com allows individuals and officials to upload images of stolen items to Trace. The team also implemented visual search and recognition capabilities from LTU Technologies. Together, the database and visual search functionality enable collectors, auction houses, and other second-market dealers to verify whether a particular item has been reported stolen.
Industry: Services

National Institutes of Health www.nih.gov
Optimizing ERP Implementation With Holistic Approach
Project Lead: Tom Keith, Director of Logistic Services
Project Description: NIH persevered through a challenging ERP implementation and made it a success by reengineering its data warehouse, item management, and purchasing business processes to take into account more than just the technology itself, an integration of Prism Purchasing and Oracle Warehouse Management software. Reconfiguring the system to match technology to business processes and to provide standard operating procedures, NIH improved its requisitioning, purchasing, warehousing, and distribution capabilities to facilitate medical research.
Industry: Government

Nationwide Insurance www.nationwide.com
Using Virtualization to Control Server Sprawl
Project Lead: Scott Miggo, Vice President, NSC Technology Solutions
Project Description: To reduce expenditures in its growing datacenter, Nationwide Services consolidated its expansive Windows-based server environment onto 100-plus VMware ESX servers. With more than 500 virtual machines, 60 percent of which are production servers, Nationwide has reduced its physical server count drastically, saving money in hardware and operational costs in excess of $2 million. The project's 15:1 consolidation ratio and 60 to 70 percent utilization rate (up from 10 to 15 percent) have led to power, cooling, and space savings estimated at $2,250 per machine.
Industry: Insurance

New York City DoITT www.nyc.gov/accessnyc
Public-Facing Online Screening Tool
Project Leads: Commissioner Paul Cosgrave; Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs
Project Description: To provide residents living below the poverty line with improved access to social services, New York's Integrated Human Services System Task Force launched Access NYC, a Web-based single point of entry to city, state, and federal human service benefit programs. The portal is based on Curam Software and taps WebLogic 9.1, Solaris 10, and Oracle 10g to allow 1.5 million New York City residents to pre-screen, anonymously, for more than 30 programs in seven languages.
Industry: Government

North Carolina Department of Commerce www.nccommerce.com
Marketing Optimization Using Analytics, Data Mining
Project Lead: John Correllus, Business Intelligence Director
Project Description: To increase the state of North Carolina's ability to recruit new businesses, the Department of Commerce led a business-intelligence initiative to integrate data from a variety of sources and provide tabular and geospatial reporting and analytic capabilities to department employees, site selection consultants, and the North Carolina economic development community. The project integrates technology from SAS and ESRI and pulls data from various federal and state departments to provide site selection and relocation consultants with the tools to select appropriate relocation sites.
Industry: Government