Dynamics AX Beats OS/400-Based ERP at National Fleet Management Firm

by Alex Woodie

QEK Global Solutions, a provider of vehicle management services in North America, has replaced its existing OS/400-based ERP system with a new Windows-based system running Microsoft's Dynamics ERP software, the software giant announced last week.

Based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, QEK Global Solutions provides a full range of outsourced fleet management services to organizations in the U.S. and Canada. As part of its offering, QEK provides everything from vehicle ordering, tracking, receipt, assignments and license, to accident and theft administration.

The company relied upon ADP's Dealer Management System running on an IBM AS/400 server to run many of these back office processes. However, that system was beginning to show its age, according to Tom Cyr, chief information officer with QEK.

"We had outgrown our legacy ERP system and needed to implement a single solution that would provide true integration throughout our U.S. and Canadian operations," Cyr says. "We needed technology that was truly scalable and that was intuitive for users throughout our company via a familiar look and feel with other Microsoft products already in use. We found the solution to our challenges in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0."

The company reported specific benefits in the ease-of-use, look-and-feel, and user-comfort departments. The IT department at QEK is expected to benefit by standardizing on a set of "industry-standard tools."

The implementation was a coup of sorts for Microsoft, which displaced the AS/400 (now called System i) platform in an industry--trucking and fleet management--where the System i platform still has a fairly large installed base. For example, most of the big national trucking companies still use the System i platform for fleet management and dispatching.