Leading Edge Solutions, a Labat group company, has established an OEM (original equipment manufacture) agreement with US ERP giant SSA Global to market its HiVolume high-volume order fulfilment module worldwide.
Leading Edge Solutions invested more than R10 million in developing the product, which will be sold by SSA Global worldwide from its 56 offices and partner operations. It will initially be branded with and sold in support of the BPCS ERP system, which is in use at thousands of customers worldwide.
"We initially developed the solution for Parmalat, which was using BPCS version 6. The problem Parmalat faced was that too many windows would open on telesales staff screens, forcing customers to wait lengthy periods during information capture. HiVolume not only solved this problem, but also enabled batch updates for remote sites when communications with the central server were down," says Mark Alexander, MD of Labat Software Solutions, the sub-Saharan distributor for SSA Global`s software.
"In volatile and rapidly changing markets, the need to adapt to change to remain competitive is more profound than ever before. Companies have begun looking at ways to optimise their systems and business processes and one area that is important when trying to reduce costs and improve customer service is order taking and fulfilment," says Alexander.
BPCS HiVolume allows users rapidly to execute the picking, confirmation and billing process in offline and online modes. The initial design scope addressed an order entry requirement to capture over 100 000 order lines in a five-hour window, with over 15 000 sales items offered.
An original design objective was operational continuity, which remains a key strength.
"Operational continuity is particularly relevant to sites sharing an IBM iSeries platform - the leading platform for BPCS - or in areas with poor or costly telecommunications infrastructure, where downtime can affect the business," says Alexander.
HiVolume has moved beyond straightforward order capture and fulfilment to include functionality supporting telesales, transportation load building and vehicle route reconciliation.
Benefits include improved speed and accuracy, offline capability, transaction reduction, processor load reduction, 24x7 availability and cost reduction.
The BPCS HiVolume solution consists of:
* Order entry
* Order-to-invoice
* Telesales
* Load building
* External order interface
* Van/route reconciliation
* Remote sales support
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