Infor Gives HMS an iPad Interface, Lands New M3 Customer

July 10, 2012 Alex Woodie

Checking in to a hotel that uses Infor‘s Hotel Management System (HMS) should be a more pleasant experience thanks to a new iPad interface designed to work with Infor10 HMS. Infor also announced that a California dairy products company has licensed its Lawson M3 software, which it plans to run on IBM i gear.

The new iPad app, called Infor10 HMS Check-In, should streamline the check-in and check-out process for guests of hotels that run the Infor10 HMS, which Infor obtained with the $80 million acquisition of SoftBrands in 2009.

Infor says many check-in activities will now take place from the iPad, including room assignments, key generation, and credit card processing. Guests will also be able to sign the registration form directly on the iPad. At check-out, hotel employees will be able to view notes and print bills from the iPad app.

Check-In will also help the front desk of a hotel communicate with the hotel’s housekeeping staff. In addition to assigning rooms for cleaning, the front desk will be able to view room status in real time from the Check-In app. Various reports, including occupancy flash, forecast, and revenue reports can also be viewed with the app.

In other news, Infor announced that Clover Stornetta Farms, a manufacturer and distributor of conventional and organic dairy products in California, has selected an Infor ERP system to help it manage its business more efficiently.

Clover Stornetta says that its implementation of Infor10 ERP Enterprise (M3) for Food and Beverage should help the business in several areas, including government compliance, increased visibility into manufacturing processes, and more accurate information for decision making.

The capability of M3 to run on the IBM i platform also played a major role in Clover Stornetta’s ERP decision, as it prevented the company from having to undergo a costly server migration and to retrain its IT staff, Infor says.

“M3 better positions us for future growth through visibility into our operations, which was previously a challenge for our business,” Mkulima Britt, a partner and CFO at Clover Stornetta, says in a press release. “Now, we can identify which processes work and which can be improved upon to maximize efficiency in production, enabling the standardization of processes across our current and future locations.”