Step 7 - Complete Deployment of an EDI System Amongst Trading Partners
Many organizations compile EDI education and training programs for their suppliers once they are ready to extend the EDI system to the rest of their trading partners. VANs also support their customers by getting trading partners online. Often called "ramping suppliers" or "community enablement", this is an integral process in successful EDI system deployment to a supply chain's trading partners
Hub and Spoke Supply Chain Model
With the hub and spoke approach, the customer (the hub) deploys its EDI program to its suppliers (the spokes). The level of assistance and leeway that large companies provide their suppliers can vary. Often, suppliers receive the message that, in order to continue the business relationship, they must use the EDI system.
Suppliers may be reluctant to engage in EDI. The hub can often surpass any inertia or resistance by detailing how the business relationship will be affected by EDI and overcoming objections. Potential objections may include:
• The sometimes accurate fear that setup costs may be significant
• Expectation that license fees for EDI software and those of order processing systems are of similar magnitude
• Cash flow or budget considerations
• MIS priorities including network and PC upgrades
• Workload and planning cycles
• Lack of consultants or employee candidates with EDI possessing experience
Establishing a Trading Partners Conference
Two factors that can increase the number of trading partners and compliance speed, as well as increase the return of the company's EDI investment, revolve around providing EDI education and help. Trading partner resistance is often overcome by education. The EDI coordinator should decide whether EDI education will be provided by the organization or by a contracted EDI VAN.
Supplier conferences may be hosted by the hub if they are a purchasing organization. In addition to learning about the EDI program, suppliers learn about EDI benefits and options for EDI implementation. Here are some tips for a successful conference:
• A non-technical, high-level and well-known business person extends the invitation
• The high-level person should open the conference, relating to the suppliers and business objectives
• Inform suppliers that any representatives speaking from EDI networks and software companies are there for educating - not selling
• Provide suppliers with clear and concise requirements and expectations
Other options for an organization that cannot hold a conference due to geographical or other limitations, one of the following approaches may be adopted:
• Introductory chapters in publications that were once dedicated to format guidelines
• Additional staffing and effectiveness of EDI telephone support groups
• Enabling services such as EDI VAN
• EDI training companies
• The U.S. federally supported Electronic Commerce Resource Centers (ECRCs)
EDI System Testing
In the late 1990s, leading VANs and hubs decreased effort for quick, large scale EDI implementations. A test procedure is the first decrease. Before testing, trading partners receive a 1 or 2 page procedure explaining what to expect. Trading partners, hubs and VAN personnel use this document as a checklist during testing. Because these procedures enable training of hub and VAN personnel on specifics as opposed to general EDI standards, there is rarely need for extensive EDI experience. Additionally, hub or EDI VAN testers use tools. Often, generic purchase order information is retrieved by the hub or VAN where the trading partner's receiver ID is applied. Others set a flag in the supplier database that replicates production purchase orders.
Because EDI VANs and service bureaus utilize generic data, hubs that outsource EDI testing must realize that only a portion can be outsourced and only the trading partners' EDI systems are tested. It is the hub's task to test accuracy and business meaning of data by processing production data through the EDI system into an order processing ERP or similar system. This will thoroughly test the hub's product data files.
Phased Implementation of the First Transaction
EDI implementation may take a phased approach. The same pilot test procedures are used once the organization decides how many trading partners it can handle at once. Dual testing and dual operations timetables should be strictly followed and the objectives of EDI are used to select groups of new trading partners. For example, if the objective is to reduce accounts payable processing, high paper volume trading partners should be implemented first.
Additional Transactions
The next transaction is selected and viewed as a separate project after EDI implementation of the first transaction has taken place with a substantial percentage of trading partners. Because the second transaction often needs to interface with a different application, the technical EDI members of the first transaction's team often work on the second transaction project sooner than members involved in EDI implementation and deployment.
Since the second transaction often involves a different user department, the first challenges are analysis, motivation and education. One common question is, 'When should the EDI coordinator be freed from the first transaction?'. If the second transaction involves the same trading partner community, pilot testing and deployment is usually simpler, although not trivial. Some trading partners may expect that EDI requirements are completely and permanently met.
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