Lawson Software’s Monday morning

Two pieces of news out of Lawson Software kick off the week this week. Firstly, Patties Foods announced some early success with the rollout of the Lawson Software enterprise management system project. Lawson had signed the contract to implement Lawson M3 manufacturing, distribution, financials, demand planning and warehousing applications. Lawson has been a bit tricky to follow lately, as evidenced by a couple of name changes related to the contract: Lawson Software was formerly known as Intentia, and Lawson M3 was once Movex.

In early 2006 Patties successfully went live with the system. And to put it briefly from the oodles of praise coming out of Lawson PR, Patties Foods CFO Andrew Beeson said, “The implementation has been a great success.” Lawson Software can take credit for launched a clever product indeed. Patties Foods is a company based in the Eastern Victoria province, specifically in Bairnsdale, South East Gippsland. Patties Foods is among the top manufacturer of pies, pasties and sausage rolls in the world. (Press material reports that it is “arguably the largest.)

The forty-year-old, still family-owned company’s decision to implement a new system came as a result of rapid growth over recent years, thanks to acquisitions of the Four’n Twenty, Herbert Adams and Nanna’s brands from the American-owned Simplot Australia in 2003. The seaside shop had become a business with 350 employees with office in the four largest cities in Australia. Patties – and subsequently Lawson – was faced with a data situation that had suddenly grown exponentially. Lawson had been used a legacy IMAS solution. Under auspices of the contract, Lawson was to implement solutions on the distribution side to assist Patties in better managing its finished goods selection process, and in establishing electronic inventory control between Patties and its cold storage providers.

Patties also installed PACS software, which works with Lawson M3, in assisting in managing Patties’ retail discounts, rebates and promotions activities. “It is early days yet,” (sic) said Beeson, “but once we become more familiar with some of the advanced features of the product, I envisage (sic) we will be able to dramatically reduce paper flow within the organization and reduce our dependence on manual spreadsheets and other manually produced documentation.” Along with the announcement of current result came notice that Patties is about to embark on further Lawson M3 modules in a second phase.

“This approach has allowed us to replicate the functionality in our outgoing system, and become familiar with the solution before moving on to implementation of the additional modules, once we have greater experience of using the system.” Lawson Software human resources announced that Travis White would become senior vice president of marketing today.

In the position, White will be responsible for Lawson’s global marketing and corporate communications and will report to Lawson president / CEO Harry Debes. White brings twenty years’ worth of experience to the position. His last stint was actually within Lawson, with whom he signed on in April of this year. Prior to jumping aboard the SS Lawson, White worked for JD Edwards for nine years, ultimately reaching the post of Europe, Middle East and Africa marketing vice president. Debes praised White for his sales record, saying his “track record of success in ERP applications and extensive experience outside the US make him a strong addition to Lawson as we target new revenue opportunities around the world.”

St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson Software has provided and / or provides solutions to 4,000 customers in forty countries, in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries. Lawson’s solutions are in include customer relationship management, enterprise asset management, enterprise performance management, enterprise resource planning, manufacturing resource planning, supply chain management, and industry-tailored applications.