NEW YORK, NY — (Marketwired) — 04/23/13 — , a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, partnered with Infor Syteline user Preferred Sands to help increase connectivity at the company-s six plant locations and 54 distribution terminals. Through a deployment of , Infor-s purpose-built middleware solution, Preferred Sands has been able to connect , third-party maintenance and finance applications, and the systems employed by the warehouses. Preferred Sands also implemented , an innovative application development framework and platform as a service (PaaS) offering, and , a platform for social collaboration, business process improvement and contextual analytics, to move forward with further integration and communication between the company-s applications.

ION, Mongoose, and Infor Ming.le have positively impacted the way Preferred Sands- users communicate and collaborate by creating visibility across departments that previously would not have worked together. The accounting team now has greater visibility into operations and can provide instant feedback on decisions. With direct insight into spending, rather than waiting for an end of the month report, accounting can alert operations decision-makers when budgetary limits are reached. Departments now have a better understanding of their financial impact, which contributes to the success of the entire organization.

“Our core business applications are able to work independently while operating as a unified whole, and this became the catalyst for streamlining and accelerating Preferred Sands- day-to-day processes through greater visibility across locations and operations,” said Luke Rains, systems development director, Preferred Sands. “Overall, the project has given us an enterprise-wide perspective on the company, enabling better business decisions that are based on real-time data and information from Infor applications.”

The project also had a large impact on procurement and processes related to the terminal distribution network at Preferred Sands- third-party owned warehouses. Employees previously had to communicate with warehouse staff via phone or email each time a shipment was sent, delivered, or picked up by a customer, then warehouse terminal operators and Preferred Sands employees had to manually enter and update information which frequently led to user errors. Now the company can integrate third-party terminal systems with Infor SyteLine, and automatic notifications are sent each time a shipment changes location or is paid for and picked up, without requiring any entry from the user. Employees can instantly view real-time information on shipments, orders, and inventories across all warehouse locations, and this has significantly reduced the amount of incorrect inventory data and allowed for better decisions regarding product logistics. “Now decision makers have enterprise-wide visibility into the procurement cycle because ION has connected, automated, and streamlined the process,” continued Rains.

Within procurement information on the number of outstanding requests, where they are in the process, and how much money each request calls for is quickly viewable in an easy-to-read format. This has enabled better overall budget tracking and allocation because once a procurement request is submitted, decision-makers can instantly view its potential impact on the budget before signing off on the request.

“With Infor ION, Preferred Sands is prepared to accommodate future growth with the ability to quickly and easily add new technologies, additional sites, or upgrade existing applications,” said Steve Moroski, senior vice president, platform technologies, Infor. “The company is ready to effectively progress and acclimate to complexities that might arise, which will ultimately enable them to remain competitive by evolving to meet fluctuating market demands.”

In the near future, the company plans to deploy ION on mobile devices so that users can receive notifications and perform interactions while on the road or away from their desk.

Preferred Sands is an owner-operated industrial sand company driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, a results-oriented culture, and a philosophy based on individual performance and responsibility. With locations throughout the U.S. and Canada, Preferred Sands is a leading supplier/exporter of high-quality premium frac sands and resin coated proppants.

Infor is fundamentally changing the way information is published and consumed in the enterprise, helping 70,000 customers in 194 countries improve operations, drive growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business demands. Infor offers deep industry-specific applications and suites, engineered for speed, and with an innovative user experience design that is simple, transparent, and elegant. Infor provides flexible deployment options that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premises, or both. To learn more about Infor, please visit .

Infor customers include:

19 of the top 20 aerospace companies

12 of the top 13 high tech companies

10 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies

23 of the top 50 largest US hospitals

43 of the top 50 industrial distributors

26 of the top 35 global retailers

5 of the top 9 brewers

  infor, ion, ming-le, preferred-sands