Challenges

Tempel Steel is the leading, global manufacturer of precision magnetic steel laminations critical to multiple industries including motors, generators, lighting, and automotive — with high growth in hybrid and electronic (HEV) automobiles. But competition is fierce, and the timing with entering farther-reaching markets coincided with pressure from Oracle to upgrade Tempel’s EBS from R11 to R12 in order to continue receiving critical updates. This ultimately served as an inflection point for Tempel Steel to undertake a comprehensive reevaluation of its highly-customized, mission-critical technology business systems in order to forge a Business-Driven Roadmap toward their transformation to a fully data-driven organization.

“The upgrade to R12 would have necessitated a full reimplementation, causing business disruptions during a very critical period” noted Joe Cannella, CIO of Tempel Steel. He opted to divest service support from the incumbent ERP vendor and opt for independent, third-party support, thereby allowing retention of Tempel’s extensively-customized, high-functioning Oracle EBS R11.

Rimini Street Solution

Tempel Steel uses Rimini Street services for its EBS and Demantra deployments, saving significant funds — an immediate 50% reduction in EBS support — while Rimini Street continues “guaranteed service support on the current application for a minimum of 15 years, fully addressing the ongoing need for enhancements, patches, and regulatory updates” stated Cannella. His team appreciates the proactive, strategic service approach they receive: “The dedication from Rimini Street has made our team feel like we’re one entity. We leverage Rimini Street support to provide answers as a collective group, which tangibly enhances our efficiency” noted Tempel business analyst Jennifer Dilling.

Client Results

With liberated funds and resources, the IT department is now engaged in multiple initiatives to drive Tempel’s data-driven evolution while also enjoying exposure to advanced technology experiences and new professional growth opportunities. Key achievements include: a successful Oracle database upgrade to 11g, rollout of electronic data interchange (EDI) for e-commerce, and implementation of Rimini Street Advanced Database Security. All of these have enabled Tempel Steel to win a contract to produce HEV engine cores for a major client, driving company growth.