Watlow Taps Infor to Revolutionize Customer Experi

NEW YORK, NY --(Marketwired - January 17, 2017) - Infor , a leading provider of beautiful business applications specialized by industry and built for the cloud, today announced that Watlow, an industry leader in the design and manufacture of complete thermal systems, has selected Infor Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Accelerate to enhance their customer's experience by improving global business processes. As a manufacturer of state-of-the-art industrial heaters, temperature sensors and thermal control applications, Watlow partners with its customers to help them optimize their thermal performance to deliver efficient heating products and applications. To better achieve this goal, Watlow has selected Infor and Ultra Consulting to help undertake the Horizon Project, which is focused on transforming the Watlow experience for customers and team members while delivering improved business processes and supporting systems. By choosing to implement Infor PLM Accelerate, Watlow plans to improve data integrity, standardize business processes and supporting systems across the enterprise, increase information availability and deliver enterprise-wide collaboration that fortifies decision-based business processes.

At the core, Watlow is a manufacturer of all of the components required to deliver fully optimized thermal systems that are then custom designed to meet the specific business needs of each customer. Watlow heaters, sensors and controllers are purchased by OEM manufacturers, which then utilize these components to build their own products. In an effort to increase the amount of systems level work and transition from commodity-heavy orders, Ultra, a consulting group specialized in manufacturing, was brought in to help shape this vision through a strategic technology investment that better targets the engineering community as a customer base. Watlow also selected Infor PLM Accelerate, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that is designed to holistically manage product development at every stage of the lifecycle.

"We strive to provide every customer with the best products and applications needed to fulfill their thermal requirements, many of which are customized," said Steve Desloge, chief financial officer, Watlow. "This requires us to constantly evaluate our approach to ensure we can deliver the highest quality for the best value. By selecting Infor, we are able to take proactive steps to achieve a lean business model that reinforces the scale of product development available to our customers, while using a more collaborative approach to do so. This investment will also support our vision by enabling more effective processes to support systems-based sales."

Infor PLM Accelerate provides a secure, scalable solution to help discrete manufacturers manage high levels of complexity, while still delivering a flexible approach to address changing business needs within the organization. With implementation, Watlow is hoping to strengthen data accuracy, integrate disparate systems, reduce waste through a lean business model, establish virtual collaboration and enhance the decision-making process through improved visibility. The solution provides real-time visibility into processes that help safeguard data integrity, and state-of-the-art business intelligence tools provide meaningful insights to further drive product viability. The open architecture design and use of Infor ION, a purpose-built middleware, enables smooth integration between various systems and applications to help data flow throughout the organization. Infor PLM Accelerate can facilitate collaboration through shorter development cycles, and improve coordination through a secure web-based environment.

"It's clear to us that Watlow has a very innovative vision for revolutionizing the way they approach the market and partner with their customers, but what they lacked was a set of technology tools that are equally as transformative, and that is where we come in. Infor is providing a platform to not only help them achieve a leaner process internally, but also pass along the best practices of the lean approach so that their customers achieve the same benefits throughout the product lifecycle," said Edward Talerico, Industry Strategy Director, High-Tech, Infor. "With Infor PLM Accelerate, Watlow can increase its ability to collaborate systems, applications and departments throughout the enterprise to align an organization-wide focus on customer satisfaction."

About Watlow

Watlow provides best in class engineering expertise and leading thermal products that enable customers to thrive.

Watlow brings its experience to numerous industries, including semiconductor processing, environmental chambers, energy processes, diesel emissions, medical and foodservice equipment.

Since 1922, Watlow has grown in product capability, market experience and global reach. The company holds more than 450 patents and employs 2,000 employees working in nine manufacturing facilities and three technology centers in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia. Watlow also has sales offices in 50 countries around the world. The company continues to grow, while the commitment remains the same -- to provide its customers with superior products and services for their individual needs.

About Ultra Consulting

Ultra Corporation is an independent research and enterprise solutions consulting firm serving the manufacturing and distribution industries throughout North America, as well as companies with global operations. Since 1994, Ultra has delivered enterprise technology expertise and business process management to drive business performance improvement for its clients. For more information, visit ultraconsultants.com.

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About Infor

Infor builds business software for specific industries in the cloud. With 15,000 employees and over 90,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress. To learn more, please visit www.infor.com .