Company Background
With about 500 employees and operating three North American distribution centers and several small distribution hubs throughout Europe , Stylemark is the largest distributor (units) of sunglass of its class in the world. They distribute into sixty seven countries, which they service through sales offices in nine different countries.
Business Goals
As the largest sunglass distributor in the world, Stylemark’s goal is to remain the industry leader and increase market share.
Challenges
The challenge for Stylemark was to find a multi-carrier shipping solution to implement as they migrated to SAP for their enterprise (ERP) solution. The choice was to develop separate interfaces to all of the carriers, including, parcel, LTL and Truckload, or find a TMS (Transportation Management Solution) that addressed all of the carrier’s requirements and could be seamlessly integrated to SAP.
Solution Requirements
The major requirement was for the new solution to be seamlessly integrated into the new ERP solution, SAP. “The company wanted to be sure all of the shipping data would update in real time to our host system to streamline the order to cash process and make the information visible throughout the enterprise”, states Glenn Shapanka, the CIO for Stylemark.
Implementation
With a project team assembled, the IT staff at Stylemark went to work with Varsity to identify what shipment and order data needed to be delivered to the Varsity system and what corresponding data needed to be returned back to the SAP environment. As that information was passed to Varsity professional services team, their programmer began to build the interfaces that would support the flow of data.
All of the data is being moved via SAP integrated function modules utilizing RFC and JDBC connections to the SAP database, allowing the SAP code to be on any server or operating system that supports JDBC connectivity. As goods are packed, SAP seamlessly interfaces with Varsity to produce carrier compliant labeling and export documentation, returning accurate shipping costs, tracking information, and appropriate customer charges real time.
The lead programmer on the project from Varsity Logistics, Bob Russell worked with the Stylemark team to build the handshakes and test both the SAP and Varsity applications to ensure the quality standards that both companies require. Bob states “We quickly developed a three step process of identifying the data, building the bridge, and testing, and were able to complete the interface in 90 days.”
Results and Benefits
By tightly integrating SAP with Shipsoft, Varsity’s SAP interface enables seamless order processing from order entry to delivery. Shipment and order information is shared across the enterprise, and tracking information is available real time to the customer service department as well as the shipping departments. The desired result for Stylemark was achieved and the Varsity solution reduced their costs and ensured that shipping costs are properly recovered.
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