System Integration Solution for KAN company.

Solution: System Integration Industry: Construction Core sector: Wholesale

Integration of ERP and MES Systems Using Apache Camel

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Efficient Data Flow

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Fast Integration of New Systems

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High Availability

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The Challenge

KAN is a renowned and internationally recognized Polish manufacturer of modern and comprehensive KAN-therm plumbing systems. Since its establishment in 1990, KAN has built its position on four strong pillars: professionalism, innovation, quality and development. Today, the company employs more than 1,100 people and has a network of branches in Poland, as well as branches in Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. KAN-therm products are exported to 68 countries around the world, and the distribution network covers Europe, a large part of Asia, as well as Africa and the Americas.

With the implementation of the MES, it was necessary to create an integration middleware to allow seamless implementation of further planned changes to the IT architecture. KAN Group approached Unity Group with the need to implement an integration solution that would allow for faster and more efficient expansion of the architecture in the future, without the need for complex modifications.

Kan Group required high system availability for their new architecture. However, they were very open and sought recommendations for the most adequate technologies to achieve this.
The project had to take into account the nature of the organization's work, in which production takes place continuously, as well as direct communication between ERP systems (iScala) and the MES production management platform (PSIasm), in order to achieve set production goals without any obstacles
Kan Group wanted to ensure future expansion and modification. Notably, more than just the enablement of existing systems, the possibility to securely integrate external applications (outside of the KAN network) was critical.

Andrzej Miszczuk

IT Systems Director
KAN

"The project completed for KAN allowed us to integrate the ERP system with the MES while achieving high system availability, which was a key factor in the process for us. The integration went smoothly, the communication with Unity Group and also the understanding of the problem was at a high level, which allows us to give a positive evaluation and recommend this company."

The Solution

In order to build the integration middleware, the "light" Apache Camel technology was used together with the Spring Boot framework. More than a proven and reliable solution, it’s also free and therefore highly cost-efficient.
High availability was ensured through the use of Docker Swarm, which forms a cluster of containers, alongside the use of a load balancing mechanism and floating IP.
Thanks to the use of an appropriate approach, the implemented integration middleware ensures that the messages sent to the ERP system are always up to date. Data consistency and timeliness have been maintained thanks to a dedicated mechanism for verifying message versions, based on a database that stores the status of the integration process.
The solution can be expanded in the future, thanks to the integration layer and use of data exchange protocols, such as REST, SOAP, SQL, SMTP and HTTP, alongside the ability to provide data processing without loss.
We also created a mechanism for monitoring the flow of data between systems, along with a system of e-mail notifications about encountered errors, which enables quick response rates in the event of a problem.