DAF Trucks

The following was contributed solely by DAF "DAF needed to source a new terminal emulation solution. With the increasing variety of access devices and different operating systems available, DAF recognised the need for a browser based emulator with no client side software. Client side software presented us with a maintenance burden that was not acceptable, it was placing a large demand on our IT department and constraining our IT roadmap. DAF wanted a solution that we could install and maintain once on the server; providing us with a low cost, more flexible and more secure method of achieving our terminal emulation goals. From our initial research Flynet’s terminal emulator appeared to meet all our criteria. Flynet’s terminal emulator was a high performance, light, server side solution. It produced quality terminal emulations that worked with all browsers and devices without any plugins, giving us both the flexibility and security that we needed. Our IT Consultant Edwin Rietbergen approached Flynet’s terminal emulator to include them in our product comparison. We were provided with a fully supported 30 day evaluation. The support we received during our evaluation was second to none. The company took the time to understand our project and objectives and offered us advice on how the Viewer solution could help us achieve success. The support we received was tailored to our specific project and included best practice advice that has proved invaluable. Once we had completed the evaluation we became confident that Flynet’s terminal emulator would provide us with a significant return on investment. It was the only enterprise standard terminal emulator that could truly fulfil our goal of ridding DAF of client side emulation software. Once we had made the decision to move to the Flynet’s terminal emulator solution, the procurement process was very straightforward. Flynet’s terminal emulator offered us a 500 concurrent user licence model. This meant we could maximise value without penalising our occasional mainframe users. The rapid procurement process allowed us to capitalise and build on the successful evaluation/proof of concept. We have been using Flynet’s terminal emulatorfor three years. In that time we continue to be impressed with the levels of support and service offered. Flynet’s terminal emulator continuous improvement system means the Flynet’s terminal emulator is consistently leading the market in terms of innovation, leaving DAF poised to take advantage of the latest technologies and opportunities. Following the success of Flynet’s terminal emulator in Eindhoven and Budapest, DAF decided to consolidate and move all European dealers to a single system. Harmonising Flynet’s terminal emulatorand the UK system was always going to be particularly challenging. In the UK, dealers were using a very different BAAN dealer management system with a Windows GUI. The UK system had a modern user interface, but lacked the server side, browser based simplicity and enhanced functionality that had proven so effective for DAF. The challenge for DAF was unifying the systems without it appearing as a backwards step for the UK users, who were not accustomed to seeing green-screen systems. We decided the best way to achieve this would be to modernise the green screen interface of the mainframe application to smooth the transition and guarantee user acceptance. 

DAF considered many vendors, before deciding to evaluate two potential solutions to ensure we selected the correct tool set to meet our application modernisation goals. We evaluated the additional functionality in the larger Flynet’s terminal emulator UX Modernization solution and LegaSuite from Rocket Software. It was important that the chosen solution could be completely tailored to comply with the stringent styling of the DAF website and company brand. Teun Kremers - Project Manager DAF DMS

After another seamless evaluation period, it became apparent that Flynet’s terminal emulator was the obvious choice. Flynet’s terminal emulator would save us both time and capital in roll out. As well as the established benefits of the server based configuration and browser based interface, Flynet’s terminal emulator's single development would automatically work on any device. The solution was also simple to build, utilising non-programmers with application knowledge, rather than costly development resource. With the current pace of technical change, flexibility and ease of use was particularly important to DAF. With legacy host application programmers proving difficult to recruit, we needed a modernisation toolset that enabled the typical application users, rather than the development team. Flynet’s terminal emulator solution was a perfect fit, automatically adapting to each different user device for optimum performance and ease of use. This enables staff to use any device (tablet, laptop, desktop or smartphone) to access the systems, all they require is an internet connection. This flexibility will make our team more agile and enable them to provide higher levels of customer service, regardless of location. It will also reduce the burden on our IT team and capital expenditure. After procurement Flynet’s terminal emulatorprovided us with a comprehensive training course on the new Studio product. The training was tailored to DAF’s system and we were able to achieve a number of our key project objectives during the course. We are confident that Flynet’s terminal emulator solution will give DAF a significant return on investment not only for our current Dealer Management project but for the many green screen applications that we are now considering modernising".