How Cartographer Consolidated Oneonta Trading Corporation's Sales Desk

Background

Oneonta Trading Corporation, located in Wenatchee, Washington, is a leading supplier of fresh produce products both domestically as well as globally under their prestigious Starr Ranch label. Oneonta is also the sales agency for a number of independent grower, packer and shipper operations located in the states of Washington and Oregon. A long time Faceforward for Famous user, Oneonta approached Faceforward Software, LLC to solicit possible solutions to consolidate the inventories of its extended network of shippers onto a single uniform manifest. Prior attempts and offered solutions were deemed too costly and complex to implement across such a broad enterprise.

The Challenge

In early 2008, Oneonta Trading Corporation awarded a project contract to Faceforward Software to develop a software application that enhances the timeliness of updating inventory levels and the visibility of available product by warehouse. However, no changes were to be required of the independent warehouses to re-build or modify the manner in which they assigned product descriptions.

Additionally, Oneonta wanted to establish a more accurate, timely, and organized method of inventory updates from remote locations. Most importantly, in order to gain acceptance across multiple independent business partners, the soultion had to be; easy to understand, easy to use, and improve operational efficiencies across the enterprise with minimal impact on current processes.

The Solution

Because the variables of physical location as well as potential time zone issues, the engineers at Faceforward Software determined that a web based solution would be required. Emulating the best practices of online electronic commerce platforms, the features of data storage, transaction processing, auditing, and data integrity were incorporated into a scalable web hosted data center. Designed with a master to subscriber relationship structure, Oneonta would publish an online master product catalogue to which subscribing members could then map like items from their internal product lists to the associated master list item, thereby establishing a standardizing protocol for product identification for the trading network.

Based on previously presented methods, the biggest hurdle to overcome was the amount of staff hours it would require to complete the product data mapping process. Therefore a unique approach would be required to gain acceptance across a broad and diverse group of suppliers. As a result, the engineers at Faceforward Software created a unique methodology to quickly and efficiently accomplish the mapping tasks in less time than previously imagined. This unique methodology simplified inventory data mapping and effectively reduced potentially thousands of individual product mapping tasks down to a few hundred key associations. It is important to note at this point, that because the prospect of GTIN assignments loomed on the horizon, that the design of the host master product list incorporated all the specified elements and attributes to meet the proposed standards put forth by PMA, CPMA, and United Fresh.

The final element of the project addressed the issue of facilitating the transaction phase of inventory updating. The solutions offers two methods for inventory updates. The first is an easy to use manual inventory update screen where a shipper or vendor simply enters in the counts for a product. The second is a scheduled automated inventory update that works with Famous Software v6 at preconfigured time intervals.

The Results

At the completion of this project, Faceforward Software, LLC was able to deliver to Oneonta a platform that created visibility into their expanded supply chain and the timely posting of on-hand and available inventories. The sales team and the support staff at Oneonta can now view product availability, product aging as well as orders against across their entire supply chain, improving customer service and inventory management. With a firm process in place, Oneonta can quickly assimilate others into their supply chain with less effort than their competitors. They can be more proactive in managing their manifest of raw and packed products to take advantage of marketing conditions.