Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and EDI

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software application that supports the day-to-day operations in a warehouse and is a key part of the modern supply chain process. WMS programs enable centralized management of tasks such as tracking inventory levels, receiving, picking, put-away and identifying stock locations.

 
A WMS monitors the progress of products through the warehouse. It involves the physical warehouse infrastructure, tracking systems, and communication between product stations. More precisely, warehouse management involves the receipt, storage and movement of goods to distribution centers or to a final customer. In today’s modern world, organizations may use multiple levels of warehouses. These may include a central warehouse, regional warehouses (serviced by the central warehouse) and potentially retail warehouses (serviced by the regional warehouses).
 
Early warehouse management systems could only provide simple storage location functionality. Current WMS applications can be so complex and data intensive that they require a dedicated staff to run them. High-end systems may include tracking and routing technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and voice recognition.
 
No matter how simple or complex the application is, the goal of a warehouse management system remains the same -- to provide management with the information it needs to efficiently control the movement of materials within a warehouse.
 
WMS systems may be standalone applications or modules of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.  B2BGateway offers clients fully integrated, cloud based EDI solutions to link their WMS with their ERP or Accounting Software solution. This automates the flow of data between systems and removes the need to re-key data.  This in turn gives the client greater accuracy, reduces charge backs and saves both time and money.
 
To learn more about B2BGateways fully integrated EDI solutions for WMS call +1-401-491-9595 or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net 

Logistics Pooling

At the recent ECR Ireland Supply Chain Summit in Dublin, two themes for the supply chain future prevailed: Sustainability and Logistics Pooling. In this short blog I am going to concentrate on Logistics Pooling – what is it and what are its advantages?

 
Logistics Pooling has been defined by Jesus Gonzalez-Feliu as the common usage of logistics resources: material (vehicles, platforms), human (drivers, land operators) and immaterial (software tools, information) between organizations. It consists of a semi-closed group of collaborators who share vehicles and platforms to reduce their logistics costs and the environmental nuisances related to last mile distribution in urban dense zones. 
 
Quite simply it is the sharing of transportation resources to get goods to the same distribution centre by making best use of space available (i.e. sending one full truck with multiple organizations goods on board, rather than sending many half empty trucks for each organization).
 
Logistics Pooling offers the following advantages to suppliers and manufacturers:

·         Ability to meet demands of retailers who want smaller volumes to be delivered more often(greater freshness of product, reduced inventory levels, etc.).
·         Ability to reduce transportation costs.
·         Environmental awareness and sustainability by reducing CO2 emissions.
 
For further information on automating your supply chain processes and making the best use of supply chain logistics please contact our sales team today on 401-491-9595 or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net

Will EDI work with 'Cloud Based' ERP systems?

As the popularity of cloud based ERP systems such as NetSuite and Intacct continues to surge, we often get the following question from customers who are considering switching to a cloud-based ERP system: Will this affect our capabilities to continue doing EDI with our trading partners?
 
The short answer is no, it should not. At B2BGateway we have been providing fully-integrated EDI solutions for the leading cloud-based ERP providers such as NetSuite, Intacct and Sage ERP X3 for over a decade. However, like everything else, you will need to do your homework to see if the new cloud-based ERP system you are considering is EDI capable. I would advise finding out the following:
 
·         Is the new ERP system fully cloud-based, or is it a hosted online version of a current on-premises
      ERP product?
 
·         Does the cloud based ERP system have both import and export functionality?
 
·         Will you need to purchase additional EDI modules/connectors from the cloud ERP vendor?
 
·         Is your current EDI provider capable of working with and integrating the new cloud based ERP
      solution? If not, are there other third party EDI providers on the market who can work with the
      new product?
 
·         Does the cloud-based ERP vendor currently have clients and partners using EDI with their system
     and can you get references?
 
I would also go to online sites such as LinkedIn to see are there any user groups for the new ERP system. You could post a question amongst users to see if any are currently using EDI and to get their recommendations. For further information on B2BGateway’s EDI solutions, including solutions for cloud-based ERP systems, please visit www.B2BGateway.Net or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net

 

Are you prepared for Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving and one of the busiest shopping days in the United States. This year Cyber Monday falls on December 2, 2013. The term "Cyber Monday" was created by marketing companies and made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year". According to the Shop.org/BizRate Research 2005 eHoliday Mood Study, "77 percent of online retailers said that their sales increased substantially on the Monday after Thanksgiving, a trend that is driving serious online discounts and promotions on Cyber Monday this year (2005)".

 
Last year the Adobe Digital Index called for Cyber Monday to pass the $2 billion sales mark. The actual tally was $1.98 billion, just short. But the 2013 Online Shopping Forecast that Adobe recently released promises that the threshold will be crossed and then some this year, calling for an e-commerce tally of approximately $2.27 billion.
 
Adobe forecasts that only 2% of holiday purchases will be made via social media sites, but says that sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest don't get credit for the role they play in purchase decisions.
 
Online retailers promote Cyber Monday using a variety of Internet marketing strategies, including smart phone advertisements. Comparison shoppers with smart phones connected to the Internet can easily find the hottest deals with the press of a button. Many online retailers have apps that allow smart phone users to look up products in their store. As a result, the buyer has an opportunity to explore other online stores for steeper bargains. In addition, this breeds fierce competition that grants online shoppers discounts not found in brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday.
 
Many eCommerce stores use EDI technology to gain efficiencies in their overall supply chain operations, such as using the EDI 940/945 transaction sets to communicate electronically and efficiently with their 3^rd party warehouses or the EDI 846 transaction set to get regular updates on inventory levels from their suppliers.
 
If you would like to learn more about how B2BGateway’s EDI solutions can help improve your eCommerce supply chain efficiencies please call (401) 491 9595 or email Sales @B2BGateway.Net

 

EDI Web Portals Vs. Full Integration

 

Many organizations use vendor specific EDI web portals (e.g. Amazon Vendor Central) to communicate with their trading parties, often these organizations may have multiple vendor specific EDI portals to deal with on a daily basis. This requires a lot of labor and manual data entry on the organizations behalf, from downloading purchase orders and re-keying the data into the organizations backend ERP/accounting software solution, to manually creating invoices and uploading same to the vendor specific EDI web portal.

 
As one client previously said “I know these portals are tedious and error prone, but I guess this is the price we have to pay to trade with the large vendors?” Wrong. Organizations do not have to solely communicate with their trading partners through their vendor specific EDI portals. Yes the option is there to use these EDI portals and often they are a good starting point for a young or seasonal operation. But as the organization grows, more trading partners are added and orders increase, the organization should seriously consider switching from a portal based EDI system to one that is fully integrated with their ERP or accounting software solution (e.g. NetSuite, Intacct, Sage, SAP, QuickBooks, etc.).
 
By fully integrating the organizations EDI needs with their business software application the organization can create greater efficiencies by having a seamless flow of all business documentation required. Fully integrated EDI solutions remove the need to re-key data, reduce labor costs, reduce human error and speed up the ‘order to payment’ cash cycle for the organization.
 
If you would like to know more on how B2BGateway can help your organization gain greater efficiencies and cost savings by bypassing vendor specific EDI web portals and introducing a fully integrated EDI solution, please call (401) 491 9595 or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net