At Saratoga, we recognise Worldwide Chain Stores (WCS) as an internationally renowned provider of software solutions and services, committed to enhancing the performance and profitability of organisations’ supply chains.
Specialising in warehouse management, procurement, and labor management solutions, WCS, with over 45 years of experience, has delivered world-class solutions to large organisations across North America, Europe, and Africa.
The Challenge
WCS faced a challenge with its second-generation Warehouse Management Solution, which, while excellent and appreciated by clients globally, relied on legacy technology. This posed a threat to the long-term viability of the business, as outdated technology could eventually prompt WCS’s clients to migrate to competitors’ platforms.
To address this challenge, WCS embarked on the development of its third-generation offering, CSnx, aiming to modernise its technology stack and enhance functional capabilities. To achieve this, WCS required a skilled development team adept in the latest technology. Partnering with Saratoga proved advantageous, offering high-quality development at a reduced cost compared to providers in the United Kingdom. Additionally, Saratoga’s engagement ensured WCS wouldn’t be burdened with surplus staff once the bulk of the workload was completed.
The Solution
In 2014, Saratoga signed a long-term outsourcing agreement with WCS to become their development partner, thereby providing technology direction, enterprise and solution architecture services, as well as a full service set across the entire systems development life cycle (SDLC) for the WCS’ warehouse management and procurement solutions.
We played a significant role in the development and architecture of CSnx, providing a next generation technology platform capable of automating and managing complex omni-channel supply chain operations.
- Our first priority was to port the CSnx application from an outdated IBM based EJB2/ Struts solution, which could only run on DB2 and IBM WebSphere, to an open stack.
- The new stack used the most up-to-date Java standard (JPA2) for database access.
- CSnx could now be configured to use either OpenJPA or Hibernate as JPA implementations, thereby enabling customers to configure CSnx using their choice of database e.g. DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL etc. without any code changes.
- Various features of the Spring Ecosystem were utilised for the middle tier of the application to cater for aspects such as security, data access, integration etc.
- The user interface was built using Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and SmartGWT. GWT allowed for a rich web client interface with advanced features to be built that would run on all the popular browsers.
- All the UI components in CSnx were defined in metadata, which could then be processed via a UI engine developed for this purpose. The engine used SmartGWT for desktops and plain GWT for handhelds in terms of generating the actual screens.
The new open (non-proprietary) stack allowed for CSnx to be deployed on various databases and various application servers with no change to the code. It has since been deployed on IBM ebSphere, Apache Tomcat, Oracle Weblogic and Wildfly (ex-JBoss), as well as virtual machine clusters on Google Cloud and small single servers.
The Results
The collaboration resulted in a robust, stable, high-performing application capable of withstanding rigorous international architectural audits. This modernised system significantly reduced maintenance costs and turnaround time for WCS, ensuring long-term sustainability and expanding market share for their CSnx product. At Saratoga, we’re proud to have contributed to WCS’s continued success in delivering innovative supply chain solutions to businesses of all sizes.
