As the healthcare system rapidly changes, pharmaceutical distributors and retailers are constantly envisioning new ways to move and secure the nation’s medicines, all while protecting patient safety. To assist these distributors and retailers meet their logistics goals, pharmaceutical companies take orders sent by trading partners and dispatch the healthcare products the same day.
Before ProcessOne EDI was implemented Crown Laboratories was unable to achieve same day dispatch. Some of the issues they faced
- EDI purchase orders were received from an EDI VAN in a report. These orders were then keyed into the ERP system. This led to time delays and errors.
- There was no capability to send order acknowledgements or advance ship notes.
- Unable to send EDI invoices to Trading Partners
- No ability to e-mail notifications to logistics staff to alert them to orders to be processed, picked and dispatched.
- No direct connection with Trading Partners, all communication was through a VAN.
- Many of the business processes had a manual element to them, meaning there was opportunities for delays and errors.
ProcessOne EDI was chosen to solve these issues. We’re pleased to be able to say all these issues have been solved.
- There is now a direct connection with Trading Partners through AS2. AS2 is a specification defining how to transport data securely and reliably over the Internet. Security is achieved by using digital certificates and encryption. ProcessOne EDI is the only software between ERP, WMS and Trading Partners.
- All EDI transactions are now automated
- EDI purchase orders automatically create sales orders in the ERP system.
- EDI order acknowledgements and advance ship notes are automatically sent from our client ’s Warehouse Management System. This includes ProcessOne EDI advance ship notes being created from barcode transactions and then sent through AS2 to the retailer or distributor.
- EDI invoices automatically sent from ERP to Trading Partners.
- Ability to create specialized automated transactions for Trading Partners. For instance, orders taken on target.com, are routed to the WMS by ProcessOne EDI and the products are dropped shipped directly to the consumer.
- Same day dispatch, the logistics team say this is the most important business improvement.
- E-mail notifications of new orders, deliveries and data errors that need correcting.
In addition to this new functionality, ProcessOne EDI has also been able to adapt to new business processes. Our client has launched a new consumer healthcare product range, with the products being sourced from India and warehoused and delivered from a third-party warehouse. ProcessOne EDI was then configured to accommodate this business process.
- An EDI purchase order comes into ProcessOne EDI.
- ProcessOne EDI turns this into an ERP sales order.
- ProcessOne EDI then sends an EDI Warehouse Shipping Order transaction to the third-party warehouse.
- The product gets shipped from the warehouse and ProcessOne EDI gets an EDI Warehouse Shipping Advice.
- ProcessOne EDI then confirms in the WMS and generates an Advance Ship Notice and an Invoice.
- All automated and if there are no data errors, this flows without human intervention.
ProcessOne EDI went live in August 2016, since then Crown Labs has taken on venture capital, acquired three companies and ProcessOne EDI has been able to handle all of this growth.
