In the fall of 2012, a small machine shop planned for modest EDI improvements in 2013 and found the improvements needed were less expensive than they thought.
This VISUAL (Infor10 ERP Express™) user found the economy evolving and business improving allowed for EDI advancement. Their thought was to resume the EDI work that was cut in early 2009 due to budget constraints. Being unsure of the items and the purpose, they called Data Communication Solutions (DCS) for assistance.
The first step was DCS’ free assessment, which took about 2 hours. An hour was devoted to meeting with the Customer Service Manager to learn of their EDI process and inefficiencies, and customers with high transaction counts that did not use EDI. The result of the assessment was a task list with time estimates and priorities.
DCS made two recommendations:
- Upgrade Gentran to the current version
- Add customers
The customer agreed with DCS’ recommendations and upgraded to Gentran which included moving to a virtual machine (VM) along with minor process smoothing. The time needed was 32 hours.
They also ID’d and added three customers with high transaction counts. With all the documents in place, the time needed for each was 12 hours. The documents that were integrated were:
- Inbound customer sales order (P.O., 850)
- Outbound confirmation (P.O. Ack., 855)
- Outbound shipment notice (ASN, 856)
- Outbound invoice (810)
- Non-integrated documents – Remittance Advice (820) and Payment Application Advice (824).
The result was more time to scrutinize orders for the correct prices and discounts, while eliminating data entry for the three customers. The total cost was $8840, which achieved a 100% return on investment (ROI).