The challenge
Three decades of business logic, locked in COBOL.
Roughly one million lines of COBOL held the rules for the entire business. Hundreds of programs. Decades of knowledge. Fewer specialists left to read it.
Change the technology.
Keep the knowledge.
The business context
Nine connected business domains relied on the same ERP. Green-screen workflows, duplicated rules across crop years, and slow enhancements made every change harder.
Nine domains in scope
Nine business domains. One modern platform.
- Customers
- The people and businesses Stine serves.
- Sales
- The commercial side of the seed business.
- Production
- The operation behind every crop year.
- Inventory
- Seed stock across the operation.
- Orders
- Customer orders within the ERP.
- Shipments
- Seed moving through distribution.
- Growers
- The growing partners behind the seed.
- Conditioners
- The conditioning side of seed operations.
- Reporting
- Business information, brought together.
The approach
Prove it in six months.
Then do the rest.
We recovered the rules from source, rebuilt representative screens, and tested them in weekly demos with real users.
The proof-of-concept earned Stine's confidence and the full modernization initiative.
Prove the path
Rules recovered. Screens rebuilt. Weekly validation.
Rebuild the platform
Domain by domain. Duplicate logic consolidated.
Five senior engineers. Continuous stakeholder validation.
The delivery loop
- 01Read the COBOL
- 02Recover the rules
- 03Rebuild by screen
- 04Verify in the open
“Kineticloud made a platform that best fit our company’s vision for the future. They are a wonderful team to work with.”
The outcome
Stine’s knowledge.
A new foundation.
We delivered a modern platform spanning production, inventory and distribution, with the business rules preserved.
A custom rebuild for Stine,
not a replacement of its business logic.
What changed
Modern web architecture
A responsive browser-based UI on a maintainable web stack.
Unified processes
One coherent model spans all nine business domains.
Reduced duplication
Repeated logic consolidated into one source of truth.
Modern, intuitive UX
Task-oriented screens replace dense terminal forms.
Scalable foundation
Room for new modules, integrations, and Stine's next twenty years of growth.
Knowledge preserved
Three decades of business rules captured in the modern system.
Scope of modernization
9 Domains modernized
- Core operations
- 55%
- Partner & grower-facing
- 25%
- Reporting & analytics
- 20%