Trident Seafoods Reels in a Winner

Published: July 25, 2006

by Alex Woodie

The iSeries' reputation as a rock-solid server platform was critical in the conversion of Trident Seafoods, one of the country's biggest seafood producers, to OS/400 faithful. "I'm a member of the 'I like to sleep at night' club," says Daniel Palumbo, chief information officer of the Seattle-based company. "Unlike many data centers, I don't have to track system downtime because our IBM systems never go down."

IBM announced the customer win last week. The deal, which took place almost two years ago, included System i and System x hardware, and the OS/400-based version of the EnterpriseOne ERP system from Oracle. Trident previously ran much of its business software, including sales order processing, finance, human resources, payroll, and manufacturing, on a Hewlett-Packard HP 3000 system, which the server maker has discontinued.

Trident used the technology upgrade as a chance to improve its business processes. Instead of relying on printed faxes to transmit inventory levels, the company does it electronically using satellite communications. Barcodes, generated from the System x server, are also used to track inventory in the ERP system.

All told, the company is better equipped now to make timely business decisions. "The IBM systems have been great. Managers here will tell you they're more confident of the inventory, they're more confident of the financials," Palumbo says.