Sterling Commerce Gentran | White Paper

BUILDING MATERIALS

eCommerce / EDI Managed Services and CoSourcing

A global producer of residential and commercial building materials and a Fortune 500 company for each of the 15+ years REMEDI has served the client.

Industry: Building Materials
Location: Midwestern United States
Products: Building materials such as insulation, roofing, noise control, masonry, and asphalt products
Technical Environment:

Client desired to use a blended model of coSourcing and managed services in their eCommerce department for integrations with their business network...suppliers, customers, carriers, banks, and third party administrators (TPAs)
The approach allowed internal eCommerce personnel to focus on business process competencies and related business analysis for internal business area (user) departments
The approach also freed client personnel to act as liaison between business network partners and internal business areas, and resulted in the feeding of very specific integration specifications to the eCommerce team which included REMEDI resources
Client also charged REMEDI with the training and cross-training of resources and with the obligation of ramping team size up or down based on integration demand
In addition to similar client eCommerce personnel duties, REMEDI was charged with staffing resources that could competently represent the client (communication, support hours, business integration experience) and work with customers (and other business partners) and be aware of client business area processes and requirements

Client product evolution went from Gentran Mainframe and proprietary business systems, to Gentran Mentor, to Gentran Server UNIX implementation in conjunction with a SAP implementation
Gentran Server Unix has been upgraded several times since the original installation
Client has ported EDI and eCommerce infrastructure to several different platforms and data centers
Client had technical requirements to comply with not only data integration requirements of its customers, but with varying standards and communications requirements
Client has required outside assistance in a managed services capacity but also assistance with shorter term ecommerce "special projects"

Provided from 1-4 FTE consultants as required to perform managed services in the spectrum of environments listed in the Situation section
Managed services resources performed the following duties; partner contact/coordination, analysis, mapping, testing (unit/end to end), implementation, communications development, production support, problem resolution, progress reporting, and more
Trading partner types included implementations with customers, suppliers, carriers, banks, insurance administrators (TPAs), and others
Managed services responsibilities, as related to client infrastructure, included; infrastructure support, Gentran Server UNIX upgrades, UNIX server upgrades/conversions, and disaster recovery tests
Provided from 1-2 FTE consultants as required to staff "special projects" that would arise with client from time to time..."special projects" included...

Vendor community management, an intensive time-bound effort to survey and recruit EDI capable vendors, distribute client specifications, perform testing, certify production readiness, place in production, and provide post-production support
Vendor community management, an intensive time-bound effort to implement non-EDI capable vendors on a web-based eCommerce solution where REMEDI distributed system specifications, performed vendor training/testing, certified production readiness, placed in production, and provided post-production support
Developed and hosted (on REMEDI servers) a XML translation solution that allowed client to trade documents with partners in XML formats
Perform benefits enrollment mapping and implementation with TPAs when client switched service providers

A 15+ year relationship with client playing roles from managed services, to "special projects", to outsourcing service provider
Developed, documented, and implemented 200+ maps, and maintained over 200 more
Developed 25+ Gentran server UNIX scripts, and maintained many more
Participated in 2 Gentran Server upgrades (Gentran Server 5.1 to 5.3, Gentran Server 5.3 to 6.1), by testing all maps and scripts to ensure everything worked in the new environment as in the old environment
Participated in the conversion from HP UNIX servers to Sun UNIX servers ensuring execution functionality on new servers was the same as on the old servers for scripts and EDI transactions
Participated in annual disaster recovery testing
From a client customer perspective we greatly reduced the manual effort required to process inbound purchase orders to the posting of cash
From a client vendor perspective we greatly reduced the manual effort required in the purchase to pay cycle
The timely pickup and delivery of products was accomplished with the EDI connectivity established with client motor carriers
Client was able to accommodate additional customers and associated revenue through the REMEDI developed and hosted XML translation solution
Client/REMEDI was able to increase the electronic transactions and decrease paper transactions with vendors through the eCommerce deployment initiative which was EDI and web portal based

"Thank you for the wonderful service you provide. Just this week we made the comment we would like to be a total REMEDI shop! Wouldn't that be nice? If all of our team members had the knowledge, skills, and dedication we receive from you, we'd have it made."
"REMEDI is definitely a value adding team member to our company's e-deployment team given the ever changing customer demands and differing and challenging opportunities."
"REMEDI's consultants have been lifesaving in providing solutions to some unusual situations. Their knowledge and expertise has been invaluable in making our team successful. Our working relationship has proven to be a win/win."