Vision Solutions implements iSeries system to track semiconductor manufacture processes

The cost of downtime is a concern for any organisation, none more so than General Semiconductor, an American semiconductor manufacturing company where the quality of its products are greatly impacted upon when the production line goes down.

General Semiconductor, a leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of semiconductors for the power management market, also needed to know that its manufacturing data was being tracked, backed up and replicated.

The company has found the answer to these requirements in Vision Solutions` Vision Suite software, based on the IBM iSeries system. Vision Solutions is the US arm of JSE-listed Idion Technology Holdings.

The company`s requirements, according to Gene Frey, manager of systems operations for General Semiconductor, were that the product would not only give it the data insurance it needed, but would also allow it to add another IBM iSeries (AS/400) system to consolidate operations.

"Our set up, as it was, didn`t include any data backup or data mirroring devices that would allow us to expand our existing JD Edwards business software onto an additional iSeries server," Frey explains.

"We did extensive evaluations of a number of products and opted for Vision Solutions` Vision Suite because it provided the group simulcasting capability that we needed to manage our high-volume, high-transaction environment."

Vision Suite enabled General Semiconductor to successfully install another iSeries server, in turn enabling the successful consolidation of the company`s plant operations. By establishing a centralised computing environment, the company is now able to maintain a mission-critical application environment, as well as mitigate concerns regarding the complexity of management, resource constrains and the rising cost of ownership.

In addition, the company`s production system and tracking information is "shadowed", or replicated, so its manufacturing operations records are available to the enterprise any time, any place and anywhere.

"We run the JD Edwards software system for all our order processing and business operations," Frey continues, "and without having a primary backup and monitoring system in place like Vision Suite, we could not have added another iSeries server to run the JD Edwards software within a central processing environment.

"Because of the delicate and important nature of what we are doing that i tracking the manufacturing of semiconductors, it exceeds all our expectations. Vision Suite is keeping our systems` information available to all our factories around the world.

"With the new system up and running, Vision Solutions is doing a great job of supporting us, especially through their CustomerCare Response Centre."