Are supply chain errors costing you dear?

It's no secret that supply chain errors cost business. During tough economic circumstances, it is especially important for businesses to have supply chain efficiency.

Knowledge is power. Reliable supply chain data can drive a business forward with an effective strategy. So, business decision-makers need to be asking several key questions:

• Is supply chain data accurate enough to inform business decisions?
• Can the data help identify business opportunities?
• Can supply chain reporting be trusted to highlight weaknesses before disasters strike?

EDI solutions for greater efficiency

Leverage Transalis eDI Freedom for better business decision-making. Gain greater data accuracy and visibility with document standardisation, systems integration and advanced reporting.

For businesses with manual data processes, the answer to all the above is ‘no’. In fact, data inaccuracy is costing businesses dearly. This is due to incorrect orders, persistent stockouts and order cancellations.

Sounds familiar? Then help is at hand with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). The digitisation and automation provided by EDI ensure immediate and consistent data accuracy.

Find out how EDI can secure data accuracy and revitalise your business in the blog below.

What is the biggest problem in supply chain management?

There are a number of common supply chain problems. One of the key ones is manual data entry.

Why is manual data entry so unreliable? The simple answer is human error, which is extremely common. This is true no matter how diligent employees may be.

For example, mistakes can be triggered by:

• Lost or misplaced documents
• Human calculation errors
• Data entry typos
• Bad telephone notes or illegible handwriting

Additionally, the margin for error is multiplied each time a data point is manually transferred. Therefore, so does the lack of confidence in the accuracy of the information.

Studies suggest that up to 5% of all manually entered invoice data is typed incorrectly.

This is a huge handicap for any company aiming to be more efficient and customer-focused. How can any business expect to grow sales, manage costs and stay compliant with flawed data?

This level of inaccuracy not only has an impact on profitability but can also fatally undermine customer relationships. This isn’t a good look, particularly during an economic downturn.

Eliminate supply chain errors with cloud-based EDI

There are many benefits for businesses implementing EDI solutions as part of a digital transformation strategy.

Research shows that cloud-based EDI systems lead to a significant increase in data quality. Some sources report a 30 to 40% reduction in transactions containing errors.

It also suggests that supply chain EDI ensures a significantly higher number of orders being right the first time. This has big knock-on effects. Firstly, it results in a 30% faster delivery time to customers. Secondly, important business cycles, such as invoice-to-cash, can improve by as much as 61%.

Cloud-based solutions from Transalis allow direct and automatic communications between computer systems in the supply chain. This means labour-intensive and error-prone keying of information is removed entirely.

Built-in EDI checks and balances

It’s no surprise that data accuracy is a key benefit of EDI. Accuracy has been baked into EDI on three different levels:

1. Automation: This strips out human involvement and preserves the integrity of document data.
2. Standardisation: Carefully defined criteria are set for both document content and formats, reducing the chance of incorrect data being shared. Standardisation offers consistency, even for businesses that process high volumes of documents.
3. Confirmation: EDI document standardisation solutions automatically generate a confirmation receipt for both successful and failed submissions. This allows for speedy resubmission if necessary.

Compare this with conventional document processing. Documents and confirmations are typically sent by email or post. This approach relies on trawling through an inbox and waiting on delayed or lost letters. Evidently, this form of document processing is inefficient at best and unreliable at worst.

EDI is accessible for any sized business

For too long SMEs have missed out on the benefits of EDI solutions, but with Transalis eDI™ that’s no longer the case. During tough economic times, a 5% data error rate is the difference between business success or failure. Electronic Data Interchange and other automation solutions are fast becoming a necessity to future-proof the supply chain operation.

Warehouse teams working blind without EDI

Consider the experience of a financial director at a medium sized retail brand, referred to here as Stephan, whose warehouse staff had no real-time visibility of inbound stock. Without EDI, they were left to reconcile orders against emailed advanced shipping notices as trucks arrived, often unaware a delivery was even on its way. Unloading a single large truck could take between one and three hours to check off against the paperwork, and extra staff and warehouse capacity had to be kept on standby because nobody knew exactly when the next delivery would land. Once EDI gave the business real-time visibility of what was due, when and where, that same process fell to minutes, with the right number of staff scheduled to match, no extra capacity required and inventory levels optimised using real-time alerts.

When one change request means three different systems

Disconnected systems cause similar friction. An operations director at a medium sized online retailer, referred to here as Suzi, found that every volume or delivery time change had to be processed across at least three separate systems just to confirm the request and align it with a supplier. Each extra stage added complexity, increased the chance of human error and cost more in wasted resource. Introducing an EDI solution let these changes update automatically across systems overnight, with request and response messages exchanged digitally and minimal need for manual intervention.