Data Communication Solutions (DCS) was approached by a leading food producer in North Carolina to upgrade their ERP system to Oracle’s JDE EnterpriseOne (E1) and their current EDI system from Gentran 400 to BizLink. Their customers include: AAFES, Direct Supply, Harris Teeter, McDonald’s, and U.S. Food Service.
The Challenge
Due to BizLink’s flexibility, few delays on the EDI side of this project were encountered. The main challenge came with coordinating the upgrade on both the ERP and EDI side for the go-live. Testing communications until the go-live date was unavailable, which added stress (although a back-up plan was in place, but never needed). DCS’ EDI Specialist’s biggest concern was ensuring ERP changes were learned so the EDI side could also be changed.
DCS’ Solution
Extensive testing made sure nothing had changed with the other parts of EDI while the JDE upgrade was taking place. One of the technical goals of the customer was to eliminate as many as possible additional tables that had been created to store EDI information. The solution was to either use a field in JDE or use the notes fields on the orders. All VAN and FTP sites were managed manually before using commands in case of any issues. A new process was also created to send old invoices through the new system with missing information.
The Result
Due to the careful planning and testing by the DCS EDI Specialist, two very successful upgrades were able to happen simultaneously. All 28 Trading Partners were moved from Gentran 400 to BizLink for Purchase Orders, Invoices and Acknowledgments successfully. All issues were resolved during the go-live weekend making sure orders were pulled and processed through the new system. The seamless process ensured that no orders were missed and little to no effect to the customer’s Trading Partners occurred.
The following Tuesday morning, after the go-live weekend, all orders were pulled in two hours and were confirmed by Customer Service. By that Wednesday morning all invoices and acknowledgements were sent to Trading Partners.
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