Manufacturing & Distribution Solutions

Supply / Demand Chain Automation

The Problem

Manufacturers and distributors spend countless hours and dollars receiving, validating, entering Purchase Orders from their buying clients; communicating/solving problem orders and sending Invoices back to them.

At present, orders can be received in multiple formats (via fax, email, EDI etc.) from multiple buyers. Once an order is received, it must be “validated” by a customer service rep to ensure that the buyer is credit-worthy, that the product is in stock, that it has not already been allocated, that the Purchase Order has correct item numbers, price, terms, and a myriad of other details prior to being entered into their sales order application.

 

If there are problems with an order, the process to rectify the problem is entirely manual. Service reps must also deal with phone calls from buyers and internal sales personnel on the status of when orders will arrive.

The Solution - OpenEC® Distributor*Trade

The OpenEC® Distributor*Trade solution uses OpenEC® Trade Manager, TradeLink and Trade Web Application Manager to allow a manufacturer/distributor to communicate to their buying clients electronically [DA1] no matter what their technical sophistication.

The solution moves business documents (such as Invoices) from a company’s back-end ERP system and transmits them to their trading partners in the format that they can utilize. It also receives business documents (such as Purchase Orders) from their trading partners and integrates them into their back-end ERP system.

The movement of all business documents is audited and tracked and available to view in one “operations dashboard” to allow the Distributor to view and action any problems in the movement of business documents.

The Benefits

Implementation of the OpenEC® Distributor*Trade provides the ability to:

• Present a solution for 100% of your customers no matter what their technical sophistication
• Significantly reduce sales order data entry costs by electronically receiving Purchase Orders
• Improve customer service by providing  24 X 7 online access to critical business information
• Reduce Purchase Order/Invoice reconciliation time and costs
• Improved audit of all business document transfers
• Leverage existing electronic interfaces for communicating with all customers