Lawson Signs Five Companies to M3 Contracts

Published: April 24, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Lawson Software announced five new M3 customers last week, including European companies Enia Carpet Group, Bygma, Johannes Fog, and Plus Orthopedics, and Guatemala-based Koramsa. The new contracts were signed during the company's third quarter, which ended February 28.

Enia Carpet Group is a €190 million (about $250 million) Swiss manufacturer of flooring materials, including paper, steel, textile, foil, and high-quality residential and commercial carpeting. The company will replace an existing ERP system with M3, a Java-based ERP system that is traditionally, but not always, run on an IBM iSeries server. Enia's initial plans call for installing M3 at its facilities in France, Spain, and England. By the end of 2009, the company, which employs more than 1,300 people around the world, hopes to have M3 implemented in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, and the Ukraine.

Also choosing M3 were Bygma and Johannes Fog, two leading players in the building material and lumber industries in Denmark. While separate companies, Bygma and Johannes Fog had similar needs--they've both grown through acquisition in recent years, and together own more than 60 businesses in Denmark and Sweden--so they worked together to obtain new ERP systems. Plans call for Bygma, the larger of the two companies, to go live on M3 by this fall, while Johannes Fog is aiming to be fully operational on M3 by 2008.

Another new M3 customer is Plus Orthopedics, a Swiss manufacturer of implants for the hips, knees, shoulders, spine, feet, and other body parts. Plus Orthopedics had been a customer of Intentia's since 1999, and following the merger of Intentia with Lawson, decided to move forward with the upgrade from the RPG-based Movex suite to the Java-based M3 suite. The company, which employs about 900 people, has been live on M3 at its Switzerland sites, and plans to roll-out M3 next in its Italian subsidiaries, with offices in other countries to follow.

The final new M3 customers announced, Koramsa, Guatemala's largest apparel manufacturer, has signed an agreement to implement QuickStep Fashion, a pre-configured ERP package, based on M3, designed specifically for the apparel business. In addition to QuickStep Fashion, Koramsa will implement several M3 applications, including enterprise mobility, supply chain planner, and Multi-Site Planner; a business intelligence package; and Lawson Learning Accelerator.

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot