Automotive | €65 million turnover
Rapid business growth for Nifco
An integrated and automated solution
40
Separate Trading Partner's EDI requirements met
Overview
Originally outsourcing their EDI needs, Nifco Poland engaged with an external provider to manage their business processes. This all changed in 2012 when a lucrative new contract with Ford presented two serious issues. The first revolved around the processing of advanced shipment notices (ASNs); electronic business documents used to provide advance information to recipients of a delivery including contents, physical characteristics and shipping details of a delivery.
Under the terms and conditions of their new contract with Ford, Nifco Poland needed to return each ASN within a specified time frame but their existing EDI solution did not comply with this aspect of Ford’s mandated EDI approach. Subsequently, continuing to outsource their EDI to their original provider would result in high ‘late penalty charges’ due to the delays in production Ford would experience for each late submission.
A second issue arose in relation to the incursion of late penalty charges themselves and the effect they would have on Nifco Poland’s favourable status as a ‘Tier 1 supplier’; a business who manufactures and supplies products directly to OEMs.
If Nifco Poland were to continue using their original EDI solution, their Tier 1 supplier status would be increasingly jeopardised leading
to an inevitable demotion to a lower supplier status through the imposition of demerit points.
Approach
Business growth: Nifco Poland needed an EDI solution that would allow them to create and send ASNs and receive forecasts from Ford in the short-term and in the long-term, exchange data with current and future trading partners as the business grew. Receiving a recommendation from an existing trading partner, Nifco Poland were advised that Data Interchange would be able to provide a suitable out-of-the-box EDI solution that would allow them to adopt and embrace Ford’s mandated EDI approach in its entirety.
Order-processing: Gathering Nifco Poland’s technical requirements, the first challenge was to ensure that the solution would be ready at the agreed commencement of trade date so that Ford’s orders could be processed in an efficient and timely manner. To do this, Darwin: Data Interchange’s premium order-processing solution was configured with a special Ford profile pack to quickly enable compliance with their specific EDI requirements and completely avoid the incursion of any late penalty charges.
Integration: A mailbox was then setup on the Dinet Integration Network and Odex Enterprise integration platform configured to act as an internal and external connection point for trading partner communications. The final part of the solution incorporated an Xlate Evolution component to enable in-house data transformation for Nifco Poland in instances where files needed to be converted from one format to another to be processed as ASNs.
Conclusion
The integrated and automated Data Interchange EDI solution not only allowed Nifco Poland to successfully commence trading with Ford without incurring any late penalties but also, ensured imperative business continuity and centralised their entire EDI function to a single cohesive platform. Since the solution has gone live, Nifco Poland have been able to manage and exchange data with increasing numbers of new trading partners and currently accommodate the separate EDI requirements of over forty trading partners.
In the coming months, Data Interchange will assist Nifco Poland further enhancing supplier integration and subsidiary communication by incorporating a Managed File Transfer element to the existing solution.
“I would like to thank Data Interchange... importing data into our internal systems, configuring different message types... all the work was carried out correctly and level of technical support was extremely high”
- Konrad Hulecki, IT Department Manager, Nifco Poland
Automotive | €65 million turnover
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