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Lapeyre, a leading manufacturer and distributor of home improvement products in Europe, relies on Enterprise Linux to run Caméléon, the graphic application package used to design living spaces for their customers.
Every day thousands of Lapeyre salespeople use Caméléon in the final stage of a sale. When the latest versions of Caméléon were being developed, Lapeyre needed to migrate to the Oracle9i environment. To support Caméléon on the Oracle platform, Lapeyre chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of its stability, availability, effective support, and full compatibility with their existing environment.
With 2,600 employees and more than a hundred shops throughout France, the Lapeyre Group is Europe's leading manufacturer and distrubutor specializing in home improvement. Customers can purchase pre-made and custom-designed fixtures and fittings for inside and outside the home. Lapeyre credits its commercial success to the close relationship with customers, responsiveness, and understanding of individual customer needs. In order to continually deliver made-to-order products and unsurpassed customer service within their multi-channel environment, Lapeyre depends on highly reliable and flexible sales management tools, the most significant being the Caméléon software solution.
Caméléon is a critical tool for Lapeyre's sales force, allowing them to check the catalogue, develop made-to-order scenarios for customers, see mock-ups on screen, and study the practicalities of each option. Caméléon then sends all required factors for the final product to the entire production chain, reflecting the final changes in cost. This powerful tool is the final link in Lapeyre's sales chain, valuable for concluding sales. It allows products to be fully tailored to the individual; customers can visualize items they wish to purchase.
Additionally, Caméléon is a strong management tool. It automatically generates all the manufacturing data including names and ranges for a customer order in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for the group's 13 factories. As a result, Lapeyre requires the highest levels of availability and performance from Caméléon and the underlying platforms.
Lapeyre had to migrate to Oracle9i to benefit from the advantages of the new version of the automatic Caméléon Configurator and effectively manage the increase of catalogue data. It was at this point that the company decided to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES in all their stores in mainland France and its overseas territories.
"Several arguments made us lean in favor of Red Hat. Firstly, the desire to be independent with regard to the builder, to avoid a proprietary model, but also to use guaranteed material for the installation. Finally, we wanted the assurance of using a single collaborator with long-term support options that would not disappear overnight."
Philippe Rennes, Head of Systems and Database Management System, Lapeyre
The decision to adopt Red Hat's Open Source Architecture is the result of long deliberation at Lapeyre. Due in part to their historically Unix culture, the groups' technicians already experimented with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in testing stages and internal layouts. Because they required an extremely reliable system, capable of high performance and with long-term support, they tested a variety of likely solutions. Lapeyre ultimately chose Red Hat as its solutions provider.
"Roll out began in the last quarter of 2003. The Red Hat technicians packaged a solution specifically for Lapeyre, including automatic installation. Connecting to a server, rolling out a master, and networking the machines took a Lapeyre technician only a quarter of an hour." explained Philippe Rennes, Head of Systems and Database Management System.
Lapeyre also chose to install Red Hat Network Satellite in its head offices, which operate on a private France Télécom MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network. The Satellite allows them to download operating system updates nightly, according to individual configurations of each system. Updates are catalogued so that the entire Lapeyre network always has precise data.
Equipping all the stores required less than six months. Almost a year after the installation took place, the Group can only congratulate themselves on their choice. "When it was installed, we really appreciated being able to work with real professionals. Red Hat has really supported us in everything relating to the Service-Integration domain. Thanks to the Red Hat team's availability, response time, and relevance, the situation went according to plan," Rennes said. One of the biggest wins in this deployment is the fact that these changes were carried out with no impact on the Lapeyre sales force.
Now every Lapeyre store is equipped with a Dell® PowerEdge® 2650 with an Oracle9i database. "Several arguments made us lean in favor of Red Hat," Rennes explained, "Firstly, the desire to be independent with regard to the builder, to avoid a proprietary model, but also to use guaranteed material for the installation. Finally, we wanted the assurance of using a single collaborator with long-term support options that would not disappear overnight." Lapeyre's internal experience with Unix systems also tipped the balance in favor of Red Hat. "Our technicians had the opportunity to develop their skills quickly with Red Hat's support, an important factor for the future," he added.
The guarantees and support coverage extend over a three-year period and within Lapeyre the Red Hat Enterprise Linux roll out continues. Every store opened has the same computing system as all other stores in the Group, making systems management more efficient and cost effective. Lapeyre also envisions the development of an ERP system using PeopleSoft® for its accounting operations. Given the performance of the Red Hat Enteprise Linux solution, the Group is strongly considering it for that project as well.
Lapeyre manufactures and sells fixtures and fittings for throughout the house:
Through its network of 100 stores, Lapeyre is a real force to be heard. Their facilities and services are offered to individual customers and to craftsmen--, organizing their home improvement projects--from the simplest to the most elaborate. The Lapeyre Group is a part of the Saint-Gobain Group of companies (Construction Distribution branch).