Schneider, one of Network Computing's newest Real-World Labs® sites, is building a Web-enabled business process for its customers, third-party logistics carriers and for tracking some of its biggest assets, namely its tractors and trailers. The goal is to run the entire transaction--including the order offer, acceptance, pickup, delivery, billing, payment and reporting--through the company's Web site. "Then order management will be a no-touch process from front to back. That's a huge cost-saver and customer satisfaction play," Matheys says.

Aside from a shipment-tracking service for Schneider's customers, which include Chrysler, General Motors, Kimberly-Clark Corp., Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart, the company also offers electronic ordering and price quotes on its Web site. And the shipment tracking goes beyond Schneider's own fleet. "Regardless of the mode of transport--a small package carrier, a railcar or a truckload--we provide them with visibility into the status and location of the shipment," says Paul Mueller, vice president, communications technology services for Schneider.

Other transportation carriers that contract with Schneider now can invoice the company via the Web so they get paid automatically. And in the first quarter, Schneider will begin accepting and confirming shipment orders from its customers in real time over the Internet. In-house, meanwhile, Schneider is test-running an application that tracks the status of its trailers: where they are and whether they are full, empty or still hooked to a tractor. The trailers are outfitted with GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite equipment, which feeds status information to Schneider's big Web server.

Within the corporate network, Schneider is in the process of fixing its notoriously kludgy terminal emulation by eliminating its IPX traffic and IPX/SNA gateways. The company instead is going to TN3270 as the network continues to evolve completely to IP, says Patrick Stephani, manager of data communications and desktop engineering for Schneider.

Schneider's backbone today is a mix of frame relay and dedicated T1 WAN connections and a redundant gigabit and switched Ethernet campus backbone with Sonet. At the heart of the Web server farm is an IBM Corp. ES/9000 Web server with Cisco Systems' Cisco Channel Interface Processors for faster access, Stephani says. "We engineer the network around our business needs," he says.

Meanwhile, even with all the Web activity at Schneider, Web-based e-commerce represents only about 5 percent of its overall operations today. The bulk of its business is still conducted through traditional EDI transactions, not the Internet. "For sophisticated organizations [like Schneider] that need to move lots of data in a standardized format, EDI has a long life," Matheys says.