Solution Overview

Industry

As a supplier to many EDI enabled retailers in North America, Whitney Design required a business solution to satisfy mandates from their retailer clients for electronic communication of business documents using the Internet and AS2 communications as the transport method.

Scenario

Whitney Design wanted a business solution to satisfy mandates from their retailer clients for electronic communication of business documents over the Internet. Their existing EDI solution (TradeLink with an interface to their ADD+ON accounting system written by Pioneer Business Systems), worked very well but they needed a reliable, tightly integrated solution to communicate business documents over the Internet as a full 90% of their business comes from EDI enabled retailers. If possible, Whitney would also like to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of their existing EDI Van connection.

Company Profile

Whitney Design a Bridgeton Missouri based supplier of housewares products delivers innovative products and solutions with unsurpassed product quality and fashion forward designs to the North American retail marketplace.

Benefits

Quick cost effective implementation of EDI over the Internet to a large retailer client, significant improvements in reliability of communications and a single consolidated view of communications using their EDI Translator’s Audit system.

Software Used

TradeLink EDI Management System, Pioneer Business Systems EDI Interface, ADD+ON Accounting software and Cleo’s LexiCom

AS2 Communictions - Whitney Design

Michael Cobban, March 2003

Whitney Design, a premier supplier of house wares products to the North American retail marketplace had to find a solution to integrate its existing ADD+ON Accounting System and SoftCare’s TradeLink EDI Management System to send and receive EDI documents via the Internet using the AS2 protocol to satisfy a mandate by a large retailer. In addition, Whitney required a way to reduce communications problems using their existing EDI VAN connection

Whitney Design designs and manufacturers housewares products for the North American retail marketplace. In 1997, they were looking for ways to comply with retailer’s demands for EDI communications of business documents. They wanted an EDI application that could integrate to their existing ADD+ON Accounting system and reduce their internal business processing costs. This is why they turned to SoftCare.

Implementing TradeLink EDI Management System

Whitney Design chose SoftCare and its TradeLink EDI Management System because they liked their approach to combining, software, consulting and services to provide an all-encompassing solution to implementing EDI for them. In addition, SoftCare had worked with their existing integrator Pioneer Business Systems to fully integrate EDI Order Cycle documents to an ADD+ON accounting system for another of Pioneer’s clients. The system that was designed and implemented by SoftCare and Pioneer resulted in a fully integrated EDI business management solution, which handles 90% of their orders received from retailers and significantly reduces processing costs. Bart Nale of Pioneer Business Systems says, “SoftCare’s attention to detail and expertise in EDI implementations made them the ideal partner to implement an EDI System for Whitney Design”.

Implementing an integrated solution for communications via the Internet

Originally, Whitney communicated to their EDI enabled trading partners using an async dial up connection to an EDI VAN and used Cleo’s 3780Plus® and SYNCcable+™ from Cleo Communications for a direct bi-synchronous connection to a large retailer client. While Whitney was very happy with their EDI solution overall, they were growing increasingly concerned about the reliability of their EDI VAN connection. Problems with async communications using public telephone lines and antiquated communication protocols were causing issues of lost or delayed Purchase Orders, which affected their bottom line. In addition, in early 2003, Whitney received notification from a large retailer that the retailer was dropping support for bi-synchronous communications in favor of communications via AS2. Whitney went to SoftCare to find a solution to their communications dilemma. SoftCare proposed an upgrade to their existing TradeLink EDI Management software to its tightly integrated TradeLink solution which supported direct AS2 EDI communications to their large retailer client and to their EDI VAN using Cleo LexiCom™.

Implementing a tightly integrated EDI Translator AS2 Communications link

The first step was to upgrade their existing TradeLink, which was resident on its SCO UNIX machine. As this machine also contained its ADD+ON Accounting Software, it was determined that LexiCom would be installed on an NT Server outside of Whitney Design’s firewall. The decision was made to ensure greater security of application data by putting it behind two firewalls. Communications between TradeLink and LexiCom are handled using web services. SoftCare developed a series of Remote API’s to communicate with LexiCom. As an example, on outbound communications, business documents are moved form ADD+ON to TradeLink via the Pioneer Business Systems EDI Interface. Once received, TradeLink generates EDI complaint Mailbags. Using its communication process, TradeLink sends EDI Mailbags (through Whitney’s Firewall) to LexiCom. LexiCom sends the EDI Mailbags to the appropriate trading partner. Upon receipt of the Message Delivery Notification from the trading partner, LexiCom updates TradeLink of the status of the communication session. TradeLink’s communications process then updates its internal audit system with the results of the communications session.

Implementing direct AS2 communications to a large retailer

Once all the pieces to the solution were installed, the SoftCare Solutions group concentrated on quickly implementing a direct AS2connection to their large retailer client. Using the pre-configured host defined in LexiCom for that retailer, it was a simple process for the Solutions group to quickly and efficiently implement the retailer and get Whitney trading EDI documents via the Internet to the retailer.

Implementing an AS2 connection to Whitney Design’s EDI VAN

Once their direct connection to their large retailer client was implemented, the next step was to try to improve communications with their EDI VAN for retail clients who hadn’t implemented direct connections. SoftCare worked with Whitney and their EDI VAN to re-configure their EDI communications to use AS2 to the EDI VAN. In addition, SoftCare re-negotiated with Whitney’s EDI VAN with a result of Whitney realizing a significant reduction in their EDI VAN charges. As an added bonus, the implementation of AS2 communications to their EDI VAN has significantly reduced communications failures to the EDI VAN. Mark Brown, CFO of Whitney Design says “the implementation of a tightly integrated EDI solution that leverages the Internet to communicate business documents has resulted in direct positive benefits to our bottom line”.

Cleo and 3780Plus are registered trademarks and LexiCom and SYNCcable+ are trademarks of Cleo Communications. SoftCare is an authorized reseller of Cleo LexiCom

E-business success can only be measured by business success and is quantified by the return on investment