PepBoys is a vibrant chain of automotive after market retail locations offering full service options as well as parts for do it yourself repairs. When John Mitchell, PepBoys VP and CIO, updated his point-of-sale store applications he looked to IBM and WebSphere. The PepBoys deployment faced challenges common to many chain businesses including the need to build the communication layer functionality in a manner that avoided tearing up the in-store infrastructure. WebSphere helped PepBoys achieve this goal along with implementing new systems without re-engineering legacy applications across the entire chain, resulting in a speedy transformation. PepBoys was able to activate the application server, business integration services and MQ functionality in short order.
Improvements in the availability of information to employees has helped customers and created positive in-store results while feeding information from the field back to corporate. The data stream and related processes help PepBoys make opportunistic business decisions in product stocking and customer service.
In the repair shop, the service work order process has been redesigned to work in concert with the other new processes, streamlining the operations of a significant revenue stream.
Making the connection between the business and IT has been supported by the Pep Boys partnership with IBM.
Join SOA and WebSphere experts at IMPACT 2009, May 3-8 in Las Vegas for the one conference that brings it all together with technical sessions that span the entire WebSphere Portfolio. Visit http://www.ibm.com/soa/impact2009 for details.
