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"Inovis is a leading
provider of on-demand Business Community
Management solutions that empower companies
to transact, collaborate and optimize
communications with every facet of their
business communities. By standardizing and
automating mission-critical business
interactions, companies can dramatically
reduce the complexity and cost of supply
chain communication."
Source: Inovis
Case Study: Anchor Blue
Supply Chain Visibility is also known as :
Supply Chain Visibility,
Supply Chain Analysis,
Global Supply Chain Visibility,
Using Supply Chain Visibility Technology,
Integrating Supply Chain Partners,
Supply Chain Visibility Solution,
Supply Chain Compliance,
Extend Transaction Visibility,
Supply Chain Visibility Product Line,
Inadequate Supply Chain Visibility,
Supply Chain Visibility Defined,
Available Supply Chain Data,
Need Supply Chain Visibility,
Losing Supply Chain Visibility,
Improvement Supply Chain Visibility,
Platform Applications Supply Chain Visibility,
International Supply Chain Visibility,
Supply Chain Visibility Provides,
Real Time Supply Chain Information,
Things Supply Chain Managers,
Supply Chain Visibility Solutions Provide,
Overcome Supply Chain Visibility,
Supports Supply Chain Visibility Design,
Changing Demands on Supply Chain,
Supply Chain Visibility Traceability,
Increase Supply Chain Visibility,
Increase Supply Chain Agility,
Global Supply Chain Visibility Tool,
Improving Supply Chain Visibility.
Case Study
SOLUTION SNAPSHOT:
- Industry:Youth-Oriented Fashion Retailer
- Challenge: Increase supply chain visibility, reduce cost and shorten
lead time to get products from the distribution center and onto store
shelves
- Solution: Inovis BizManager&8482;
BENEFITS:
- Reduce supply chain transaction costs
- More than 70 percent of products are in the stores the same day they
arrive in distribution center
- 100% trading partner enablement
The situation
As a leader in the youth-oriented fashion market, Anchor Blue Retail Group
needs to be able to respond to the constantly evolving style trends so that the
right products are on the shelves of its nearly 270 stores. The highly cyclical
retail industry doesn't allow for a slow-moving supply chain bogged down by
manual communication.
In 2004, when Mary Felker came on board as Anchor Blue's EDI Manager, the
organization was putting a renewed focus on supply chain optimization. Although
there were just three trading partners at the time, Felker was immediately
tasked with the overlapping goals of increasing supply chain visibility,
reducing cost and shortening lead time to get products from the distribution
center and onto store shelves. Having the technological infrastructure in place
to handle growth was key to Anchor Blue's growth plan.
The business challenge
The ultimate goal for Anchor Blue was to move product faster through the
distribution system. Prior to the revamping of their supply chain, product would
take three or four days from the time it arrived in the warehouse until it was
received by the retail store.When product arrived at the distribution center
data on the product had to be manually entered into the system. Product was then
stowed away on the warehouse shelves where it remained until someone manually
developed an outbound shipment request for the product to be delivered to a
retail store.
A complete solution
Anchor Blue was already using a version of Inovis BizManager&8482;, which was
purchased in 2002, and a translation tool when Felker came on board. In 2005,
she upgraded to the newer version of the Inovis AS2 software and immediately
began mapping and getting trading partners off the ground.
Felker needed to consolidate multiple data formats coming from trading
partners into a single view. To expedite the implementation, she oversaw the
training of external vendors and worked with trading partners to fine tune their
EDI services to sync with Anchor Blue's EDI requirements and ensure
compatibility.
The primary internal challenge was reducing the number of revisions to a
purchase order which are often written as far out as three months and need to be
updated due to evolving fashion trend predictions as the date nears.To do this,
Felker trained all of the Anchor Blue buyers on how to properly input accurate
information into the system.The EDI system allows invoices to come in as the
purchase orders are written and additional order details can be added so that
data won't have to be manually entered later, therefore reducing errors and
costs Anchor Blue estimates that it costs $2.70 to manually work one invoice.
The results and benefits
From the point of implementation, it took one year to get all of Anchor
Blue's nearly 400 trading partners compliant. Today Anchor Blue has 460 trading
partners, 383 of which are AS2, and everyone in their business community is 100
percent compliant and electronic in regards to supply chain communications.
" The Inovis software is the best out there in terms of how it is written
because it is easy to do the things we need it to such as tracing documents or
finding dropped sale documents.The AS2 piece from Inovis allowed us to keep our
costs down as well. I was able to enable more than 400 trading partners in
BizManager&8482; with no additional VAN charges.The ease of onboarding and community
roll-out with Inovis made implementation and training very easy."
Mary Felker EDI Manager, Anchor Blue Retail Group
"The goal was to make Anchor Blue completely in-tune with our vendors and
achieve 100 percent compliance. Within one year we were able to achieve our
goal," said Felker. "We achieved visibility from a single EDI platform by
folding incoming data from multiple formats into BizManager."
The time product spends in the distribution center has been significantly
reduced. When Anchor Blue receives shipment in the morning, more than 70 percent
of the products are in the stores that afternoon. EDI with compliant trading
partners provided the visibility and communication that was required for Anchor
Blue to achieve that level of success with their supply chain.
"Everything is operating in a very stable environment now. It doesn't change
day to day and people are not required to be in the system changing or altering
data, which is ultimately what we want," said Felker.
About Inovis
Inovis is a leading provider of on-demand Business Community Management
solutions that empower companies to transact, collaborate and optimize
communications with their entire trading community. By standardizing and
automating mission-critical business interactions, companies can dramatically
reduce the complexity and cost of supply chain communication. This foundation of
high-quality, reliable and secure connectivity provides real-time visibility
across the order-to-payment lifecycle.The resulting actionable intelligence
enables users to proactively address supply chain issues before they impact
profitability, shortening cycle times, improving productivity and increasing
customer satisfaction.
With more than 20 years of expertise, Inovis delivers its products and
services to more than 20,000 companies over a wide range of industries and
markets across the globe.
For more information, visit
www.inovis.com.