With planning and teamwork, a once labor-intensive process becomes push-button easy

By Jim Cantrell

Companies are taking advantage of technology to automate the exchange of data between themselves and their trading partners. No news there—it has been happening for years. But hang on; typically, this refers to one company automating the exchange of B2B or ecommerce data with another. For example, a NetSuite user taking its customer’s purchase orders into the sales order table. But over the last 18 months or so, we’ve also been seeing more and more companies that want the interaction with data completely automated “inside” and outside of NetSuite.

An Example Business Case
Here’s an example of what I’m referring to: A manufacturer selling into the Retail/CPG market has one particular client with 500 stores. They receive 500 purchase orders (one per store) every 10 days and are required to respond with 500 advanced shipment

notifications (ASNs) and 500 invoices once the shipment is on the way. With each shipment they also need to affix a FedEx label and a GS1-128 carton label on every box. They also have to fill in information on the FedEx website and add some related shipping data back into NetSuite Shipping.

Without integration, this encompasses five extremely labor-intensive processes and a host of lightweight routines including: manually entering data from a hosted EDI solution into NetSuite (watch out for errors!), creating ASNs, creating labels (presumably with the hosted EDI solution), creating FedEx labels via the FedEx website, and creating invoices. Some of the lightweight routines include checking inventory, pricing, printing pick tickets, and so forth.

Even with integration, creating both shipping label sets and coordinating with a carrier is time consuming. The cost to process 500 orders like this, assuming one box per location, is about 125 man hours. And this doesn’t include data entry, errors resulting from data entry, attaching labels, and normal warehouse operations.

Imagine if the entire process could be completed in an hour or less. Obviously this would not include putting labels on cartons, but would include all NetSuite, shipping, and EDI-related B2B chores. That could easily save $5,000 in labor and much more in chargebacks and fixing clerical errors.

The scenario looks like this:

1. NetSuite user sits down at her desk in the morning (coffee cup in hand), logs into NetSuite, and views the day’s orders. She notes that they’ve received 482 new orders, and filters by customer.
2. She selects all orders for this particular retailer and clicks a single button, astutely labeled “Process Orders.”

All those orders were inserted into the NetSuite sales order table in real time during the night (or whenever they were received). Once the user clicked “Process Orders,” a special script started running and initiating tasks such as:

• Create report on missing inventory (if any);
• Create pick lists;
• Build shipments in item fulfillment;
• Route a “pre-ASN” of each store order
• To FedEx (or other carrier)
• EDI provider for labels (sent to seller as PDF)
• Receive FedEx shipment info; and
• Populate NetSuite Shipping module with required information.

The shipping department picks and packs the order according to pick tickets, then affixes labels to cartons as required. Once the shipment has been picked up by FedEx, someone goes back into NetSuite, selects those orders, and clicks “Send ASNs.” In real time, the item fulfillment information is pulled from NetSuite, converted to the retailer’s required ASN, and sent off. The ASN being sent triggers the order to close and the invoice to be created. The user filters and selects the appropriate orders and clicks “Send Invoices,” which sends the invoices to the intended retailer in real time. This terminates the process. The amount of time spent “in” NetSuite or any other system to process these orders was less than one hour. No need to log into multiple systems or rekey data. It’s all automated.

Few ERP platforms can accommodate this level of automation for less than six figures, but NetSuite, coupled with a multi-thread, multi-tenant cloud services broker, can do it. Companies love to save money because money saved is margin earned. If the company received an order like this every two weeks, you could easily argue the company saved more than $100,000 in labor to process the orders for a single customer. No wonder more companies are going this direction.

Automation “Out of the Box”
Two or three times a month I’m asked about a scenario such as this. When I outline the solution, the most common question is, “Can you do this out of the box?” They are asking if this sort of functionality is delivered in a package that can be implemented quickly.

The answer is a qualified “no.” Some things are pre-packaged and easily delivered by Liaison or others in the SDN community—including real-time PO, INV, and ASN integration. Likewise, integrating with FedEx, UPS, or any other carrier is also possible “out of the box” as is label creation. What’s not “out of the box” is the NetSuite user’s own business. Every company is different. The items, packing requirements, and how well the company has its own processes defined is also unique. Not to mention trading partner requirements! As a result, the data integration and automation of various processes will also be unique.

Knowledge + Collaboration = Success
To do these types of projects, we invariably work with partners that specialize in customizations for NetSuite. Liaison is a B2B/ecommerce and data management integration expert, the client is an expert in their business and, when needed to round out the team, we bring in specialized NetSuite developers to deliver expertise with NetSuite. In some instances, the NetSuite user will have the expertise on hand, or perhaps their B2B provider will. Regardless of its origin, make sure you have the expertise on your team to analyze and implement the desired outcome.

When automating a series of processes on this scale, the scripts are essentially carrying out a predictive algorithm. For the process to be successful, a long list of things needs to be implicitly understood. For example, are items serialized or shipped by lot? How do you pack and what are the item weights? In addition, a long list of questions relating to trading partner requirements need to be asked and answered. The business rules for managing data inside and outside NetSuite must be perfectly clear. That clarity provides the basis for automation.

The efficiencies found in automating data through NetSuite B2B integration can be enormous. Companies whose processes are well defined are also able to increase efficiency dramatically by automating routine processes. As NetSuite continues to offer rich platform features, the ability to integrate seamlessly and truly automate business processes is a growing trend we expect to continue in the community.

About Author

Jim Cantrell is a supply chain professional with more than 15 years leadership experience in the Retail, Distribution, 3PL, and Supply Chain sectors. In 2008, Jim formed Retail EDI, an online EDI/E-commerce knowledge portal and boutique consultancy. Retail EDI is one of the largest online collections of process information and editorials. At Retail EDI, Jim has managed projects for numerous retailers and manufacturers in the areas of EDI, e-commerce, business intelligence, and replenishment systems. Retail EDI currently has more than 5,000 members and over 100 contributing parties. Prior to Retail EDI, Jim held leadership positions for hightech, consulting, and ecommerce companies, including roles as Chief Strategic Officer, VP of Sales, and Director of Business Development for companies such as DIcentral, 16 Mile Solutions, Direct EDI, and others. Jim is the Director of Channel Programs at Liaison Technologies (formerly Hubspan) where he manages partner-related activities such as marketing and solution engineering. He was named Channel Chief by CRN magazine and awarded Supply Chain Pro to Know by SDC Exec magazine.

The statements and opinions contained herein are those of Liaison Technologies and not of NetSuite. NetSuite has not verified any statements or claims herein and assumes no responsibility for such statements or claims.