Softshare Case Studies

Navistar

Business Issue

For more than two decades, Navistar has used EDI to exchange purchase orders, invoices, advance ship notices, and more than ten other types of business documents with its suppliers. One business document type, however, that the company hadn't yet incorporated into its EDI program was its direct ship purchase order, which was still being faxed to suppliers. Navistar was eager to add this special-purpose 850 into its EDI repertoire, but wanted to ensure that the new transaction was tested and implemented in a timely fashion.

Softshare Solution

Navistar contacted Softshare to see if Softshare could host supplier testing and certification of the new 850 transaction (and its corresponding 856). Softshare and Navistar have a long working history, first partnering in 2001 to bring EDI to Navistar's smaller suppliers. As a result of this collaboration, hundreds of Navistar's suppliers are still using Softshare's EDI solutions today.

Having provided similar certification services for companies like Square D and Clorox, Softshare's Professional Services Group knew that the creation of a certification Web site was the best way to proceed. With approximately 350 Navistar suppliers ultimately undergoing certification, a self-guided Web site was designed to automate the process.

Navistar's suppliers enroll online, with 90 days to successfully complete testing. During those 90 days, Softshare's value-added network generates and sends a test 850 to the supplier's network. Not only does the supplier need to be able to successfully receive the 850, but create and return a compliant 856 as well. If a non-compliant document is returned, Softshare's network immediately alerts the supplier to the exact nature of the error so that they have time to make corrections and resubmit the transaction.

The Benefits

By outsourcing certification to Softshare, Navistar is able to quickly roll out its new direct ship 850. And because integrated EDI provides a dramatic and instant return on investment in terms of company responsiveness, data accuracy, and employee effort, time is money.

Advanced Decorative Systems

Business Issue

Advanced Decorative Systems (ADS) was rapidly outgrowing its rip-n-read EDI solution. The company, a provider of decorative automotive interior systems, received an average of 60 delivery forecast and just-in-time delivery schedules a week from its three EDI trading partners: Delphi Vega, Johnson Controls, and Continental. These lengthy EDI documents came out to hundreds of printed pages weekly—each of which was passed onto warehouse employees for manual entry into several different applications.

When a fourth customer approached ADS for EDI compliance, the automotive company knew it was time to invest in a better EDI solution. The company's objective was straightforward: to implement a solution that would allow its warehouses to easily see and process the items and quantities that they were responsible for shipping that day.

Softshare Solution

ADS contacted Softshare after downloading Softshare's free EDI editing utility, EDI Notepad. Impressed with EDI Notepad's intuitive EDI handling, and equally impressed by the mapping flexibilities of Softshare's enterprise-level products, ADS purchased Softshare Delta and Softshare ECS as the backbone of its new EDI solution, and hired Softshare to design and implement the solution.

Softshare's Professional Services Group designed an intermediate database and, using Delta, wrote several translation maps to integrate inbound EDI planning data into this new database. Another map was developed to retrieve the current day's EDI planning data from the database and write it to a user-friendly Web page. Within ECS, the EDI to database maps were configured to run upon EDI arrival and the database to HTML map was configured to run every 15 minutes, ensuring easy and timely access to the items scheduled to ship that day.

With ADS's main objective accomplished, Softshare's Professional Services Group turned its attention to reducing the amount of data entry being performed in the warehouse. The Softshare team built a Web Services solution on top of the previously-designed Web page so that, upon login, a Web Service request would prompt ECS to return a Web form in which employees could enter the ID, item quantity, and number of cartons that resulted for each picked shipment. These shipment details were mapped back to the intermediary database and, from there, several more maps were written to automate the generation of EDI advance ship notices and bar code labels.

In addition to using Delta and ECS to integrate data across the company, ADS also subscribed to Softshare's value-added network for convenient communications with EDI trading partners. ECS was configured to connect to a mailbox on Softshare's network, through which incoming and outgoing EDI data is routed.

The Benefits

With Softshare's solution in place, ADS's warehouse operations are no longer hindered by the static and cumbersome nature of paper-based data, allowing the company to be responsive to its trading partners' needs. In addition, warehouse employees were relieved of the tedious and error-prone task of rekeying data several times over, significantly improving productivity.

The Future

With EDI processes automated, Advanced Decorative Systems is considering incorporating EDI invoice responses into its operations, as well as adding new EDI trading partners, without having to worry about increased burden on employees. And because Delta is an any-to-any translator, the company is looking at other areas of operations unrelated to EDI that would benefit from integrated processes.

Financial Asset Management Systems

Business Issue

FAMS (Financial Asset Management Systems, Inc.), a leader in the accounts receivable management industry, provides a full range of debt collection services to a diverse client base. When AT&T, an important new client, requested that FAMS submit payments received information via 820 remittance advice EDI transactions, FAMS contacted Softshare.

Softshare Solutions

Initially, FAMS was intrigued by the simplicity of Softshare's forms-based Web EDI solution, but when it came to light that the 820s would include data from thousands of ACH (Automated Clearing House) funds transfers, Softshare encouraged the company to implement an integrated solution rather than one that would require manual rekeying of data. FAMS took Softshare's advice and purchased Softshare Delta and Softshare ECS. Because this was the company's first foray into EDI and because AT&T's certification deadline was quickly approaching, FAMS asked Softshare's Professional Services Group to design the solution.

Using Softshare Delta, Softshare created two translation maps to convert the ACH data files that FAMS submitted to its bank, Wachovia, into 820 transactions. Each map was responsible for a different division of AT&T. In addition, each map had to separate the various ACH payment records into four categories, based on how funds were submitted (e.g. cash/money order, checks, etc.) and create an individual 820 for each category. To accomplish this, the maps made extensive use of arrays. Arrays make a first pass at the source data, loading the information that needs to go into the 820s and then, during mapping, unloading the data according to its payment type category.

Softshare ECS was configured to once-daily retrieve the ACH data files from FAMS' file system, pass them to Delta for translation, and deliver the resulting 820 transactions via FTP to Softshare's VAN (value-added network). From there, Softshare's network routes them to AT&T's VAN. ECS' management reports and alerts allow for automated monitoring of FAMS' e-commerce environment.

AT&T required FAMS to go through a stringent certification process to validate their EDI. With the new solution in place, Softshare's Professional Services Group coordinated the certification process. FAMS was certified on their first round of testing and able to quickly move into production.

The Benefits

FAMS was able to quickly satisfy an important customer's e-commerce requirements, with minimal impact on internal IT resources. Looking to the future, the company will be able to easily satisfy other clients' e-commerce requirements by leveraging the processes developed by Softshare.