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• 1,700 large enterprises connect to customers/suppliers through DiCentral
• 10,000,000 plus transactions exchanged per year (and growing)
• 7,000 trading community participants and growing

For the freshest perspective on supply chain and best practice solutions, DiCentral stands above the rest. Call us for more information. 877-TRUE-EDI

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October 2009 Newsletter

Gearing Up for the Fall Shopping Season

By Mary Kleespies

As the busy fall season approaches, it is inspiring to see the retail industry’s determination to ensure that merchandise flows smoothly through the supply chain. Retailers were very focused this past summer on the transportation of merchandise to their stores or distributions centers in time for back-to-school shoppers. This time of year is no different.

Transportation is the largest logistics cost component, significantly affecting a company’s inventory control and customer service. For many businesses it remains largely a matter of old manual processes and rudimentary management controls. Therefore the next step for advancing efficiency is to optimize shipments to distributions centers.

TMS = Optimization of Shipments

Shipment optimization is best serviced by the implementation of a Transportation Management System (TMS).

The EDI transaction set for TMS is composed of the 753 Request for Routing Instructions and 754 Routing Instructions documents.

The 753 Request for Routing Instructions is sent by the supplier to the retailer and includes PO information, weight and cubic space required. The 754 Routing Instructions is returned by the retailer to the supplier and gives authorization for the shipment with updated trucking information such as Ship To location, ship date and time.

Benefits of TMS

• Efficient routing of merchandise through the supply chain
• Visibility of transportation mode and carrier
• Real-time vehicle tracking
• Elimination of manual webform data entry and of calling to schedule pick-ups
• Verification that PO is valid and authorization to ship it
• Elimination of empty truck space when hauling shipments
• Time management of pickups
• Cut costs by reduction in amount of carriers required to move merchandise

For more information on how TMS can specifically assist your operation, please call 877-TRUE-EDI or email

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Prominent Pharmaceutical Corporation Achieves SAP R/3 EDI Integration with DiCentral

DiCentral’s SaaS EDI model enables SAP ERP (R/3) users to achieve fully automated EDI with their important trading partners at a lower total cost of ownership than ever before. The traditional large footprint of hardware and software that once went along with an SAP integration project is a thing of the past.

DiCentral can handle your integration project with our pool of experienced professionals. Utilize our experience for quick uptimes and fast project throughput.

Many companies prefer the DiCentral model due to its extreme cost– effectiveness and the fact that it requires that less human resources be deployed from your organization.

DiCentral’s experience in SAP ERP integration is displayed in our recent collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company specializing in research and manufacturing of antibody products. For the purpose of confidentiality, the name used for the company in this study is Pharma X.

Pharma X selected DiCentral based on our history and knowledge of successful SAP integration projects. By utilizing DiCentral’s flexible Internet–based EDI solution they were able to quickly and cost–effectively bring their largest EDI customers into production.

The Challenge:

Pharma X processed 844 Product Transfer Account Adjustments, 845 Price Authorization Status, 849 Response to Product Transfer Account Adjustment, 850 Purchase Order, 820 Payment/Remittance Advice, and 810 Invoice manually from their largest customers, such as McKesson, AmeriSource Bergen, and Cardinal Health, and wanted to minimize the time consuming effort of this process. Pharma X needed a reliable SAP integration partner to automate the flow of data into and out of their SAP ERP system.

To overcome these hurdles Pharma X looked to DiCentral to bridge the gap between SAP and their important customers. DiCentral answered the call, by adding value beyond standard integration.

The Result:

Because of their high volume of transactions they were able to shave off weeks per year of time–consuming data entry, error checking, and transaction validation. In addition, the value of outsourcing the EDI process has paid off by a rapid return on investment. The Accounts Receivable department operates much more efficiently, and has become more productive since the SAP integration automates the order entry process.

When large drug distributors asked for an electronic solution for handling vendor rebates, Pharma X chose DiCentral.

“We needed a vendor that could integrate its solution with SAP,” states the IT manager of applications and business user for Pharma X. “DiCentral had the tools, and the price was right.” Pharma X discovers, develops, manufactures and markets products that power the immune system to fight serious medical needs. The company has a broad product portfolio and significant research capabilities focused on developing antibody-based therapies that prevent and treat infectious, autoimmune and addictive diseases.

“Rebates [844 EDI transactions] are critical to businesses like ours that use contract pricing,” says the business user. “Recently, we processed 14,000 rebates over a month. DiCentral allows our vendors to send their rebates electronically, and we can automatically post them to our SAP system, saving time and data re–keying. DiCentral helped us save manpower that we could use elsewhere.”

Pharma X began with eight different trading partners using the DiCentral service. The pharmaceutical company hopes to increase that number to 32.

“As we grow, we plan on investigating EDI to help reduce paperwork and improve efficiency,” says the business user. “More and more trading partners are demanding it.”

For more information on how to optimize the data flow in your supply chain operation, please contact Mike Neadeau at 281-480- 1121 ext 113 or email

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