| EDI and 3rd Party Logistic Services |
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| Written by Marlow Atticus | |
| Monday, 03 December 2007 | |
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Over the years I've seen EDI change from a loathsome, obtuse, and arcane "condition of doing business" to an agile business asset. On second thought, maybe that's going just a little too far. But my point is that more companies are recognizing that the 'stuff' of EDI is what makes their order processing hum. At some point along the way, these folks have begun to realize that they use the same data contained in their EDI transactions for additional purposes.
I notice that there’s a growing interest with suppliers that have outsourced their warehouse fulfillment and in getting these 3PL’s to do EDI either with them, or directly with the suppliers' customers. If any of you are thinking about this, or are in the process of outsourcing your warehouse order fillment, here are a few things you should think about as you make a decision about your prospective outsourcing partner – • Can they, or do they have plans to label cartons with the UCC128 Shipping label? Prior to the interest in requiring ASN’s from suppliers, warehouse fulfillment service providers were not asked about supporting a UCC128 label. With a stronger push in recent years toward requiring ASN’s from suppliers, most retailers are requesting that their supplier comply, and those that were using 3PL’s were exempt from the 856 transaction. That exemption is no longer is the norm. Meeting labeling requirements is something that should be included in a fulfillment service. • Can they or do they have EDI capabilities? Many of the 3PL’s do have EDI capabilities, however they only support a limited number of EDI transactions. The primary ones are the 940 (warehouse order) and the 945 (warehouse ship Notice). Both of these are perfect for communicating a request for and confirmation of shipping to the suppliers. The 945 is not being used to meet the requirements needed for the supplier to be able to create an 856 transaction from the data, meaning that the 945 has only contained order and item information, and there has been nothing to indicate the UCC128 information that is now being required by retail customers. I believe this is a result of my first point; there has previously been no expectation of labeling. Thus 945’s were built to be fairly simple in structure. A note to those Warehouse Service Providers; if your not already being asked to do so, you will. Retailers are requiring the SSCC18 (UCC128 barcode) information on labels and on an ASN (856) from suppliers. This means that you are going to be required to send this information on the 945 to your supplier customers, so that they will have the information necessary to comply with their customers' expectations. • Can they do an ASN? Now there are some 3PL’s that can create labels, and are communicating the UCC128 information. The question then is; can these providers only send the 945, or do they support using the 856 transaction? • Should the Ship Notice be sent to the supplier or direct to the Customer/Retailer? There is some debate around the correct path of ASN communication. For those 3PL’s that can create either a 945 or an 856, should the information be sent to the supplier to “forward” to the retail customer, or is it acceptable for the ASN data to be sent by the 3PL’s directly to the Retail customer? As you contemplate this one here are a few things to keep in mind – o Some retail customers either can’t or don’t know how to accept EDI data representing a supplier trading partner under more than one EDI ID. For those having this issue, the problem is that they set up one trading partnership (ID) where they send PO’s, POC’s and receive Invoices. Thus, they are expecting ASN’s to be sent under that ID as well. Good food for thought, right? Take care, Marlow | |