Manufacturing Distribution Solutions

VersaLex Exchange for Manufacturer/Distributors

Many manufacturers and distributors (for example Kraft, Black and Decker etc.) are eager to reduce or eliminate the high cost of value-added network (VAN) connections for themselves and the retail clients are rapidly moving from legacy VAN connections to Web-based EDI communications

As reported in a recent Computerworld article (“Internet EDI Grows Up,” by Robert L. Scheier, January 20, 2003), two developments, in particular, have worked to accelerate the acceptance of Internet EDI:

“One is the widespread adoption of AS2,the Electronic Data Interchange Internet (EDIINT)Application Statement 2 protocol. The second is interoperability testing of AS2 products, sponsored by Lawrenceville, N.J.-based Uniform Council Code, Inc. and performed by Fort Worth, Texas-based Drummond Group,Inc.”

AS2 has, in fact, emerged as the new de facto standard for retail EDI communications. In February 2004, Wal-Mart – the world’s largest retailer – switched from a mainframe-based legacy EDI system with traditional bisynchronous supplier-to-host connections to an Internet server requiring AS2-compliant clients. With Wal-Mart’s stamp of approval, the retail industry at large has gained confidence that AS2 will deliver the needed levels of capability and security for effective Internet EDI.

Now, more mid-market and larger manufacturers and distributors, look to use the experience of connecting to retailers such as Wal-Mart to implement their own EDI over the Internet based EDI solutions using products such as the SoftCare/CLEO developed VersaLex Exchange. VL Exchange is targeted at the mid-market (10 to 1,000 trading partner communities) EDI Hubs (either manufacturers/distributors) or retailers). At present,this market is being under-serviced as existing EDI over the Internet Hub solutions are extremely complex “ERP lite” solutions for Fortune 500 companies. On the other side of the market low end “spoke” solutions lack trading partner community management features, which prevent larger users of EDI to effectively manage communications of critical business documents over the Internet.  For the mid and large market distributors and manufacturers, VL Exchange provides a robust, easy to use trading partner community management solution with the power to effectively manage and audit the movement of critical business documents over the Internet.

For large Distributors and Manufacturers, VL Exchange’s product vision is as a powerful Trading Partner Community Management product designed for companies to manage the electronic transfer of business documents between themselves and their supply chain and demand chain trading partner community. It lets a company manage the secure transfer of business documents internally and externally over the Internet, VANs or other specialized TCP/IP networks.

The Benefits

The benefits to implementing VL Exchange for a Manufacturer/Distributor are:

• Eliminate monthly VAN fees currently being paid  by both parties of the transaction (sender/receiver) generating an immediate cost savings and hard ROI
• Automate business processes by enabling dynamic data interchange, generating substantial efficiency gains for manufacturers and distributors and their supply chain and demand chain trading partner community.
• Reduce Error rates associated with EDI communications using public telephone lines and antiquated communications protocols.
• Guaranteed “proof of delivery” notification generated by communications using AS2’s Message Delivery Notification specifications. This eliminates disputes on “lost” transactions, which affect the bottom line for senders and receivers.

• Reduce costs to track the movement of business documents from a manufacturer distributor’s back-end systems to their trading partner community using VL Exchange’s single consolidated “operations dashboard”.