From Dennis Bruce of Data Masons:

In-Zone Brands®, a fast growing maker of popular children’s beverages and their sister company bubba brands®, thermal hydration experts, needed a proven integrated EDI solution to seamlessly manage its data transactions between its 100+ trading partners. With this vast retail network and running Exact Macola ES, the company wanted all of its outsourced logistics managed through EDI, including the 940, 945, 943, 944 and 947 document set.

In-Zone selected Data Masons’ Vantage Point (Exact EDI) solution to fully-automate its EDI transactions given the company’s experienced staff, its support of the industry’s largest document library and its ability to eliminate unnecessary and unpredictable transaction and document fees. Once implemented, In-Zone was quickly able to push 95% of its orders…

From the desk of Dennis Bruce:

This privately-owned company, which contracts to manufacture cereal, croutons, snack mixes and dry mix products for its clients, found that their initial EDI solution was not the right ingredient to integrate with their AX 2009 platform and to support their expanding business.

The original EDI solution selected was supposedly built into their AX 2009 platform. While the company could process simple purchase orders and invoices, they found that there was nothing to support the more mission critical processes such as the 900 series Warehouse Documents…

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 client and innovator of professional grade outdoor recreational products, found the company on a dead end trail when it came to integrating EDI with their Dynamics platform. After a year and a half or trying to get their EDI documents to work with Microsoft BizTalk®, the company was exhausted from the journey with no finish line in sight.

Without successfully integrating their EDI documents, the company was paying the penalty, literally, for being out of compliance with every single transaction. Not only was the company paying unnecessary penalty fees, but they were also enduring the resource costs associated with programming AX customizations and manual data manipulation to get the EDI documents processed…

From Dennis Bruce of Data Masons: Specialty pharmaceutical company and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 customer, Acella Pharmaceuticals, traditionally relied on a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to support certain supply chain functions, including EDI. However, given the growth of the company, they decided the best thing for their long-term health was to pull all of their outsourced functions back in-house where they could more effectively manage costs and increase their visibility into everyday operations.

To successfully accomplish their goals, Acella understood from the beginning the critical role that their ERP and EDI technology would play in insuring that business continued uninterrupted. From a Dynamics NAV EDI perspective, Acella required an EDI solution provider that would not only handle 3PL EDI with their outside warehouse, but also manage all of the ins and outs of customer-based EDI…

From Dennis Bruce of Data Masons: For The Fechheimer Brothers Company, a manufacturer of quality uniforms, and Key Industries, the largest manufacturer of farming apparel in the Midwest, implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX meant the ability to effectively manage inventory and labor costs that are unique to the industry, as well as provide great service to their customers. A new ERP also meant a new opportunity to address their EDI needs.

Replacing their ERP platforms with Microsoft Dynamics AX, both companies had the perfect opportunity to analyze how they were handling EDI and evaluate other available solutions, ones that could help them overcome industry-specific challenges and gain a competitive advantage within the marketplace. Both companies realized that an integrated EDI solution would…

From Dennis Bruce of Data Masons: Serving parlors, C-stores, schools and colleges in 28 states at over 26,000 locations, this Microsoft Dynamics GP 9 customer depends on its large trading partner network to support its growing business. Supplying many of the top 5 leading food service providers, the customer found that to conduct business with these partners they would have to go through iTradeNetwork. Given iTrade’s key role in handling communications within the food services industry, the customer not only needed to implement an integrated EDI solution that met partner mandates, but also one that could get them up and running with iTrade starting day one.

Working with their Microsoft Dynamics reselling partner, the customer launched its search to find an EDI solution provider with a solution that would accommodate their EDI requirements, and do so with little to no customizations to the Dynamics GP 9 platform. Until now…

For a leading Microsoft Dynamics NAV-based national distributor selling internationally-branded products for resale in the consumer electronics, digital photography, print and presentation, video editing, outdoor, security and photo ID market categories only the Vantage Point EDI solution could help the company improve efficiency and control costs through tight business document integration and affordable compliance services.

While always striving to improve the competitive advantage of its customers and suppliers, the NAV-based company found they could deliver the enhanced functionality, flexibility and nimbleness demanded in today’s competitive marketplace by using Data Masons’ EDI for Dynamics NAV solution. One of the reasons the company chose Data Masons as their Dynamics NAV EDI provider is that Data Masons explored the industry-specific requirements of the business, provided alternatives and then tailored a solution that would not require any invasive customizations to the NAV system…

We all know that some shoes look better on the rack than they do on your feet. And when it came to integrating EDI with their Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform, UK-based footwear maker FitFlop found that their initial product, while it looked like a good fit during the sales cycle, upon implementing, was actually an unflattering misfit for their rapidly expanding business.

FitFlop’s unique technology that is built into to the bottom of every piece of their footwear has kicked-off a global footwear trend, making the product currently available in over 50 countries. In order to support FitFlop’s plan to expand their North American business, they needed to replace their initial NAV-based EDI product with a complete solution that would not only meet their current EDI requirements, but scale to accommodate their growing trading partner network.

In looking for a replacement EDI solution, FitFlop not only had to consider the solution’s ability to integrate EDI in and out of NAV 5.0, but also to the Pebblestone solution that is specific to the apparel and footwear industry – something their initial EDI product failed to deliver. FitFlop chose Data Masons’ Vantage Point EDI solution for Microsoft Dynamics NAV given the company’s industry expertise and ability to meet their Dynamics NAV EDI requirements.

Initially FitFlop employed Vantage Point EDI to handle their 850’s, 856’s and 810’s for five of their trading partners. However, once they realized how…

This week Consumer Goods Technology published a piece on Peet’s Coffee & Tea’s challenge to maintain both excellent quality and fast growth with its business management technology prior to implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX. Setting off on the process to select a new ERP platform, Peet’s established its goals: simplify IT administration, give business decision-makers reliable, current information and streamline reporting and compliance. With these goals in–hand and help from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Junction Solutions, Peet’s chose Microsoft Dynamics AX to manage their needs within the food and beverage industry.

Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Inc. (PEET) is the premier specialty coffee and tea company in the U.S., and Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 client, that was recently recognized by Microsoft with a 2011 Microsoft Dynamics Customer Excellence Award for excellence in Evangelism.

With Peet’s selling through a vast network of retail outlets, EDI is a critical part of their business operations to ensure accuracy, timeliness and traceability when dealing with their trading partners, ranging from large retailers such as Target to smaller retail stores. Peet’s relied on their partner with food & beverage industry expertise to find an easy-to-implement replacement solution to meet their EDI for Dynamics AX requirements, as after 18 months of trying to implement another EDI solution, they were at a standstill.

Specifically, Peet’s initial EDI solution could not meet the EDI specifications required by Target, putting the company in an undesirable position with one of its largest retailers…