ABS Safety | MCP Server opens door to AI

Key takeaways.

Data you can trust, automated processes, and an innovative AI interface.

3 days instead of 23 weeks

The development time for the reporting ETL processes was drastically reduced.

92 % utilisation

275 active profiles put the platform’s full range of capabilities to work.

20 minutes’ work, years of uptime

Once created, jobs keep running automatically and maintenance-free.

60 employees across 5 departments see the benefits

Up-to-date data at all times for management, sales, accounting, controlling, and IT.

Challenges.

A growing variety of systems and an ERP migration called for a state-of-the-art solution to replace complex in-house coding.

Opaque legacy structures.

The SQL scripts and linked-server connections used previously were unmaintainable black-box systems. Manual data preparation was time-consuming and error-prone, with limited auditability for modern data warehouse structures.

Limitations with formats & ERP.

The existing ERP system hit its limits on the more complex e-invoicing rules. In addition, conventional spreadsheet tools couldn’t produce the special ISO-8859-compliant CSV files required for ERP migration.

Information silos.

Product data from the PIM, customer data from HubSpot, and operational records from the ERP system all had to be manually synchronised at regular intervals. This delayed operations and made it harder to build reliable dashboards.

“For us, Lobster is the quiet presence in the background that ties everything together, keeping our data updated across a very mixed set of systems. The platform gives us a huge range of tools to tackle complex integration tasks flexibly and quickly.”

Karsten Henow

ABS Safety

Master Data Manager | IT

Outcome.

Thanks to Lobster, ABS Safety benefits from automated workflows, enormous time savings, and powerful tools for future tasks.

Development effort drops from weeks to minutes.

Creating and adjusting complex data pipelines for the data warehouse could take weeks. With Lobster’s modern ETL pipelines, the same task now takes about half an hour.

Clean system synchronisation with built-in quality assurance.

Lobster synchronises master data, quotes, and contracts fully automatically between HubSpot CRM and ERP. Automated checks safeguard data quality and notify relevant teams when an approval is needed.

The Lobster MCP server opens the door to AI.

With the integrated MCP server, ABS Safety connects PIM data to internal LLM chatbots. Employees can simply ask complex product questions in natural language, cutting search time significantly.

Approach.

A central integration platform for automated data flows and AI interfaces.

Step 1

Centralisation and automation of ETL processes.

ABS Safety replaced error-prone database scripts with structured Lobster profiles and ETL pipelines. Data is now automatically imported from the production databases into the central data warehouse, on a schedule, and with full auditability.

Step 2

Taking pressure off teams and smoothing the ERP migration

Lobster creates the e-invoicing structures and ISO-8859 CSV files needed for the ERP migration to the new system, Infor LN, and also handles emailing automatically.

Step 3

Using innovative AI technologies via MCP

As one of the first customers to adopt Lobster’s new MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, ABS Safety can now give AI models secure, structured access to company data. An internal AI model queries PIM and article data directly, without exposing sensitive data or having to create manual exports.

Technical Setup.

ABS Safety runs the Lobster Data Platform on-prem within a high-performance Linux/Azure infrastructure. Using protocols and formats such as REST, HTTP POST, GraphQL, JSON, XML, and CSV, as well as ZUGFeRD/XRechnung, Lobster seamlessly connects systems such as HubSpot (CRM), Pimcore (PIM), Infor LN (ERP), Praxedo, and Tableau (BI). Each month, the system processes over 3.4 million jobs across ~275 active profiles.

Lower Costs.
Faster Processes.
Enhanced Efficiency.

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What's next.

ABS Safety plans to further expand its use of the Lobster Data Platform.

MCP server to be extended.

The MCP server will be extended with additional data sources so that product knowledge can be retrieved company-wide via AI in real time.

Expansion of EDI interfaces.

Once the ERP migration to Infor LN is complete, the team will focus on expanding the EDI interfaces.

Orchestration.

They also plan to use orchestration to build upstream input forms for the PIM, including automated archiving.

About ABS Safety.

Founded in Kevelaer in 2003, ABS Safety GmbH is one of the leading providers of fall protection for the roofing industry. The family-run company offers a broad product range: anchor points, railing systems, rope-based fall protection systems, fall arrest PPE, ladder and access systems, and PV systems with integrated fall protection. With over 200 employees, ABS Safety handles everything in-house – from consultation and planning through to installation and maintenance.