Case Study: Cone Drive achieves lights-out automation and SOX‑ready auditing with Fortra’s Robot Schedule

Cone Drive Gears Up for Automation with Robot

Cone Drive, a global leader in precision double enveloping worm gearing, runs its Infor ERP XA on an IBM POWER6 (IBM i) platform and faced the challenge of replacing manual job entry and limited native scheduling with a fully automated, auditable process. Driven by Six Sigma goals and the need for reliable MRP runs and SOX-compliant controls, the company needed better monitoring, scheduling, and a way to maintain up‑to‑date test environments without human intervention.

Cone Drive phased in HelpSystems’ Robot suite—starting with Robot Alert, then Robot Schedule and Robot Replay—to automate MRP runs, backups, system IPLs, and weekly test-environment rebuilds using reserved command variables for dynamic fields. The result: automation rose from 60–80% to lights-out operations, complete job history for auditors, greater flexibility in scheduling and recovery, and dependable, low‑touch production and testing processes.

Cone Drive

Ed Kandel

Senior Programmer Analyst