We now have everything on a single system, which is nice. We got rid of a lot of the legacy, although we now have a legacy SEEBURGER system.

The solution's capabilities in fulfilling our existing B2B integration requirements are brilliant. Among our multiple customers we connect to SAP systems, JDE, all the various ERPs that you can possibly get, Oracle procurement systems, etc. We haven't come across anything yet — and customers are trying to trip us up — that we can't do.

Using the solution, we've created our own processes such that we have our own building blocks. That has made it a lot quicker to deploy interfaces. I would estimate our efficiency has increased by 50 percent as a result.

I don't know if the solution has saved us money, but it has given greater capabilities and therefore we can make more money because we are able to connect to different customers' systems.

SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), as an application within Ingram Micro, contributes around 30 percent of the revenue. We have different XML channels—we have Apogee and we have TIBCO as a middleware for XML and APIs. But we use SEEBURGER for XML as well as EDI. SEEBURGER is the only EDI middleware that we have in Ingram Micro for retail and logistics, and EDI comprises $16 or $17 billion in revenue per year.

The solution provides a unified platform without needing to add third-party solutions. It makes things easy and convenient because the development that we do is within the product itself. The entire suite for development is limited and focused only within SEEBURGER products. We know that if any upgrades are causing a bug, they are not because of any third-party software that we installed. That helps us greatly in terms of operations because we are in control. We know that there's only a single point of contact if something breaks down. We don't have to run around or read through blogs. We know that SEEBURGER is the only company that can answer the question. And the response from them, while it's not that fast, is okay. They're doing a good job.

SEEBURGER BIS is processing about two million documents annually offering data transfer, big data (like integration from other databases), workflow process and data converting, and providing data file confidentiality, because it's compressed and logged. 

Many processes are automated because of SEEBURGER BIS. Imagine how many resources used to be needed to follow up with email and faxes instead of SEEBURGER BIS automatically receiving and sending updates to our ERP. It is there already instead of someone receiving the fax or email, then manually entering it into our ERP system.

SEEBURGER BIS can reconcile documentation, like our accounts payable and statements within the system. If you are manually doing it, then it is really time consuming with a lot of errors. Whereas, SEEBURGER BIS allows for a lot of basic level programming within the documentation, filtering, and sorting out VLOOKUP. It lets us get two database tables from two different systems, then merge them based on the logic that we provide. So, it is a very helpful product. 

The solution has tremendously helped enable digital business transformation in our organization. It's the digital way to go. It turns everything to digital, like receiving faxes. It also cuts down on email.

The solution provides real-time data insights for our organization. It's helping us be more proactive and preorganize our production when it comes to our ingredients or anything that we need to plan to purchase. 

We still have room for improvement, but it's not because the system cannot do it or is lacking. The issue is our resources working with businesses to find wherever we can automate business processes. For example, we have started to contact our business leads in each department, work with them, and find out if they do any manual work which SEEBURGER BIS can do. Whenever we find an opportunity, we start working with the business to make it happen. So, we have reduced our manual work, but it's ongoing process. 

On the one hand, when we are talking about classic integration like EDI, we have countries in which we do a high percentrage of our revenue with B2B. SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) provides significant value in handling such things in an automated way. All the automation features are quite important. But even if partners ask us to provide integration capabilities, we are able to meet their demands. When customers ask us, we don't generally need to decline.

With the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), we can deal with each and every demand, whether it is EDI, or the customer or partner wants to have another type of interface with no direct relation to EDI, or even modern approaches like APIs. When a customer or partner asks us to provide an API on their side, while our internal components are not API-ready, the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) can make them API-ready. Think of an SAP IDoc. You can take it, you can translate it to an API-related data format, and communicate with an API. To the outside, no one would recognize that this is coming from an old-fashioned IDoc.

The solution also helps us automate processes completely. All of the processes inside SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) are made for doing a concept, doing a setup, doing a test and then, usually, you no longer have to touch them. That means it's fully automated, either by a task scheduler, or even better, by events. Whenever someone from the outside is sending data, it could be fully and automatically booked in the remote system. Or when we're picking up a mailbox, it is done with a scheduled job within the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), and the data will be processed completely without touching it.

The automation has definitely helped to reduce our costs. For example, in the automation of interfaces, EDI is the biggest portion. It's a significant KPI in the majority of the countries in which OSRAM, our company, is working. Sales automation quota is usually part of the management reporting and should indicate how many interfaces and how many documents can be booked completely without touching them, and as a result, free up resources to support business partners more. Some years ago, a calculation said, that a person in a customer service center could handle between 60,000 up to 100,000 sales orders per year, when keying them in manually. With data-driven sales automation you can free people, to care about more individual requests, and generate leads more effectively than ever before.

It also helps us to keep up to date on regulatory requirements, from two angles. On the one hand, SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) has an evergreen approach, so you do not really need to do updates. You do service packs or hotfixes all the time so you do not have to do a huge update project. Service packs also come with new functionality. For example, some years ago, OFTP1 over dial-up lines was replaced by OFTP2 over IP-based lines or internet traffic. This was then the default that came with one of the next service packs. On top of that, SEEBURGER is asking their customers what they need. It is not only about what SEEBURGER thinks the customer needs. You can give them input. If you tell them that new technology might come up, they see if it can be a part of the next service pack.

Another benefit is that it has helped to decrease time to market in our business. Whenever we receive a request from our project teams, usually within a few minutes we can set up an API. When we receive a request, we schedule it, of course, because our calendars are full of topics, but if you want to create an interface like an API, it can be completely done within a few minutes.

My organization is on the retail side, so it has been more beneficial on the insurance side of the business because it has allowed them the freedom to do a few more things. It helped them connect to private eyewear doctors so they could upload their insurance forms. Previously, we had to babysit our old software at the end of the month to make sure that files wouldn't get blown up because of their size. Whereas, SEEBURGER BIS doesn't seem to have an issue with this, which saves us time.

The solution helps us automate processes, more on the insurance side. Where they used to have to babysit monthly files, because of size, they don't have to do that with SEEBURGER BIS. They just run the monthly process. Files get collected, translated, and sent to the proper systems, so the babysitting is gone.

It helps keep us up-to-date on regulatory requirements.

Our business has grown to have 14 major customers, which implies orders of greater than 200 parts per customer. If we include ship-to then we're probably talking closer to 50 new customers that have moved to EDI. I don't think we would have made it through the pandemic, to be honest, without this.

I have a tiny team in Spain that was entering every one of those requirements manually until we switched over to SEEBURGER, and then we could get them added pretty quickly. Now, for the first time in our history, we are adding Asian customers. Branches in India and China are starting to get EDI started, which has never happened before.

BIS provides me with everything in a unified platform and I haven't needed to add any third-party solutions. 

This product helps us to automate processes. Previously, we would have normally manually entered requirements and now, we just let it read them in automatically. As an example, just one customer with a 200 part requirement that goes out over 12 months would normally have taken my team two hours per week, just to enter the requirements. Now, it just happens and there is no work required at all from the team. In this regard, it has absolutely helped us to increase efficiency. 

At this point, automation hasn't led us to reduce the number of employees that we have. As such, I don't think that we've decreased any of our costs. 

SEEBURGER has helped us to enable digital business transformation. Every time we add a new customer, there is a digital footprint. This is no longer a manual process.

The fact that BIS is available in the cloud, on-premises, and as a hybrid deployment is very important because it means that we could take from one to the other. That is amazing.

The product somewhat helps to future-proof our business. I can add new adapters, for example. We're strictly on EDI and I know that they have more offerings than that, but we have not moved past it yet. Certainly, they are not stopping with EDI, which is good.

We don't yet have any examples of how it's improved the way our organization functions because, so far in our deployment, we've just migrated over what we have, as is. We've moved all of the existing connections with our trading partners and messages across from OpenText. In the next financial year, starting next month, we'll start looking at onboarding new trading partners and really making use of the standardized messaging that we have with them, for converting to the other trading partners' formats.

What I can say is that it has met all of our requirements, to date. We are in the process, in the next couple of years, of migrating to SAP, and they have two or three different mechanisms for natively integrating with SAP. But because we're not there yet, we haven't made use of that. Currently, we are using a simple file transfer protocol mechanism, but it's fully meeting our B2B requirements.

We are looking to introduce some new message types this year, such as processing vendor invoices. That would include receiving the invoices via EDI, linking that to our ERP, and SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) automatically doing the processing. So we're expecting to achieve some additional operational efficiencies.

When we first started, we had different systems and application, six or seven of them, globally. Using SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), we have reduced the number of EDI communication tools. Now, we just have this one.

The solution can support B2B/EDI, EAI, and/or ERP integration requirements. The one thing that they are pushing is that they are a single solution that can meet all those needs. It's nice to have that in one system, versus using multiple systems.

It has also increased the level of efficiency in our company's operations by about 30 to 40 percent because everything is on one tool, supporting many people at the same time, worldwide.

The SEEBURGER solution has saved us money. Although there are other tools out there that do the same thing, if we had to buy those tools it would cost us more. The money that we spend on maintenance, for example, gives us the ability to communicate with other partners without having to use another tool or another partner. That's where our cost savings are. 

There wasn't really an improvement moving to the SEEBURGER cloud solution in the sense that the project was to replace what we had, as is. It's pretty much the same functionality from our point of view. However, some of our customers insist that we trade with them through EDI so we have to have a solution in place.

The benefit of using SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), one that we like to tout right now, is the interaction of the solution's front end with the CMA module that we purchased from them. We're able to create surveys around testing processes and the automation of the actual testing. Using that survey, it will link to the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) front end so that partners can actually do testing on their own. They get feedback and data testing, based upon our actual requirements around EDI documents. It works 24/7.

The reason we tout this so much is that we had a backlog of 100-plus partners. It was taking an average of 66 days to get a partner up, from start to finish, through all the documents that we require. This solution has reduced it down to an average of six days, with zero backlog. That's a significant improvement.

We were having to do a lot of it manually before and this is one of the big things that we hype. It's a combination of both suites: the CMA component with the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) front end. That's by far the biggest benefit that we can name.

We use some of their other tools, like the Imart web platform, for some of our smaller vendors. That has been helpful in reducing the cost on their side from having to do EDI.

But the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) front end, in and of itself - having that EDI translator straight out-of-the-box - and being able to move stuff away from IT development into the actual business side, has been helpful.

Also, with the alerting and everything else that we get out of it, we're a lot more efficient. We're able to focus more on problems with our partners, versus reacting to systemic issues. We don't see a lot of systemic problems through the platform, so we're able to respond to our partners in a quicker fashion.

No matter how much you automate in the file transfer space, there is always more to be uncovered in a big company. Users, especially in the business area, will start doing their own thing and interacting with some external webpage to upload or download files manually every day. They kind of incorporate it into their daily tasks. When we discovered that, we were like, "Why are you wasting all that time? What if you are out?" That has been one part of starting to consume different website APIs, to push and pull files to and from various vendor websites that was historically done by users manually. So, there is an automation aspect to it. Beyond that, application-to-application connectivity, which historically went over protocols like SFTP or batch files, is conforming over to APIs now because everybody wants to be faster and use APIs. Therefore, a lot of these application-to-application data flows have changed over to APIs over the last year. For example, I used to get one API request a year in past years. This year, I get one or two new ones every week or two. APIs are just taking over.

It is good anytime that you can take a user who is doing something manually every day out of the picture and automate a process, e.g., going to a vendor's webpage to pull or push a file every day. Although there was a one-time cost to do the development work, you reap the ongoing benefits because now you don't need to have that user spending time doing it every day. You don't have to worry about if that user is out or gone for a week on vacation. Things can just happen automatically. There is definitely a benefit.

Because we are in the financial services industry, PCI is huge. You have to comply with PCI regulations. That has primarily to do with credit card numbers, but really any account number or sensitive data. What is nice about SEEBURGER BIS is it has made it easy to patch our yearly PCI audits with this thing called PCI realm. You can configure any of your data flows into that PCI realm that you need to. It automatically complies with regulations, offloading the data as soon as the data flows through the system. It doesn't store any copies. It offloads the data encrypted in an encrypted state to our PCI zone to be stored for X days during our backup period. That is all out-of-the-box functionality, so you don't have to waste your time trying to figure out how to comply with PCI compliance rules because it is already built into the software. You just have to configure it in that PCI realm.

We are getting these use cases now that APIs are coming into the picture where, historically in our company, the data integration has been broken into the two major areas. Transactional messaging is on one side and batch file-based transfers are on the other side. Now, you are starting to see those two areas kind of merged together. Because usually when you get a batch file over API, they want us to break that batch file up into individual transactions, iterate over all the records in that batch file, and post them as transactions into our messaging system. 

There is now this interesting sort of convergence between the messaging space and the batch file-based space which is now sort of coming together because of APIs. So, this is another area that I am seeing a lot of requests for lately, "Hey, I want you to still get a batch file like you have always done in the past, but it is going to come over API now instead of over something like SFTP. In the API, I want you to iterate over every record in that batch file and post those transactions individually." This is another big growth area right now. Therefore, I am working on solutions to be able to support that. This would be an area of growth because we will be using these batch files to post into more internal systems and do it more flexibly as individual transactions, instead of as a big batch file. This is an area that we are looking to grow in the next year.

You could make the argument for time to market if there was a user doing something manually every day, then we came along with SEEBURGER BIS and automated that. So, instead of waiting around for the user to load the file once a day at whatever time they do it, we had the system automatically pull the file, possibly early morning, and pass it through immediately into the back-end processing system. There are some cases like that, where historically it took eight hours, because a user had to get engaged, do something manually, maybe convert something manually to transform the data themselves, and then they would have to manually load it. Here, we come along and run a workflow in two seconds that streams it right through. Therefore, you could make some arguments that we sped up time to market by automating previously manual processing. However, as far as just general B2B file transfer or application-to-application, I don't know that you could claim that the software itself has sped up time to market, other than just coding workflows a bit more efficiently to take out seconds or minutes to make them run faster.

We have different application development groups within IT. My area is primarily EDI and integrations, but in some of the other areas, like HR or payroll or shipping, there's a great need to transfer files and data with their trading partners. Those partners could be a bank or an HR company or a payroll company. The folks in our other application areas don't really have any experience with communications and integrations. Where I'm able to improve our organization is that all I need to do is have them tell me, "Hey, I need to get a file or send a file to this trading partner, can you help me?" Then I'm able to work with them and get that set up and tested.

Our other application development folks don't have to spend time worrying about doing that part of the project. I'm something like a middleman and using SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) has decreased the turnaround time on a lot of these projects.

Also, one of the things that SEEBURGER always touts is their ability to do "any to any" formatting. I really didn't understand it when we first got the product, but what I've come to find is it doesn't matter if you want to take a CSV file or an XML file or a flat file or a PDF file or a structured EDI file; you can transform it from one format to another - any to any or even to the same format - which is a really nice feature. We deal with a lot of different databases and structures in our company. We don't have a single system. We used to have a lot of problems trying to integrate our different locations. This has allowed us to seamlessly integrate our different database products together.

One example is that we had a project where we needed to have a consolidated sales history from all of our regions loaded into a third-party product that runs an SQL database. Of course, all our legacy systems are in the iSeries or AS/400. What we were able to do, since they didn't really integrate directly with an SQL database, was to have them generate CSV files and SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) was able to pick them up from their respective host systems, translate them, and load them to the SQL database records. It was quite easy and we didn't have to spend a bunch of money trying to add an Oracle Database or some other database that we really didn't need.

In terms of reaction time since implementing the solution, the connectivity between unlike systems is much easier. It involves less programming. The other thing is that SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) is a JavaScript or a Java-based system within their mapping tool. You can actually write a lot of code in there. We can perform a lot of the translations even within our mapping, whereas we used to have to do custom programming on our back-end systems to fully integrate. Being able to put everything in one place has streamlined the mapping and the integration process. That has saved at least one-third of the time.

Coming into the SAP implementation here, coming over from our legacy EDI product, at that time we had 12 EDI vendors. It took us 12 years to get those 12 vendors, due to the limitations of our legacy product. Now, there are many hundreds because of SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS). We easily have 300 vendors now.

Before, we were completely limited by the ability of our legacy system. Our ability to react has gone up 1,000 percent. What improved was the ability to bring on who we wanted when we wanted to at the pace we wanted to. Before, if our legacy software did not already have an EDI arrangement with the vendor, we couldn't do EDI with them. When we got this, we were off to the races. We were free to connect at will with whomever we wanted to. It gave us freedom.

When we brought in SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), we had one hospital, back in 2009 or so. We bought another large hospital and we picked it right up. We put it right on. EDI wasn't even a factor. It added no complexity to bringing in that new hospital.

Certainly, the majority of all of the inventory transactions and all of our PunchOut Catalog for research areas on campus go through EDI. 

We use SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) EDI for invoicing for our pharmaceuticals, where they handle the invoicing and invoice approvals. We then bring the electronic invoices into SAP from there and they go to an automatic hold in SAP and then they're released. So we have been able to use SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) to provide big invoicing solutions. In fact, here at the university, just for pharmacy alone, we're probably bringing in over $40 million a year in electronic invoices through SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS). It's easily in the neighborhood of over $100 million when it comes to meds, surgery supplies, and healthcare.

While we use it for EDI, straight up, for electronic invoicing and PO communication and confirmations, it is flexible to where we can bring it in to accommodate specialty solutions for the university such as payments for pharmaceuticals.

We have been able to automate processes using SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS). For example, we have a lot of scheduled tasks or jobs that automatically pull information from other FTP servers, according to a schedule. These automatic flows or processes have reduced costs in a lot of environments, for sure. There are fewer people needed for a specific process in the plant. Also, the timing and accuracy of the information have improved which also helps reduce costs.

It has also helped enable digital business processes in our organization. A lot of processes are now in our BIC 6 system, which helps to improve operations in our plants.

In addition, we only have 30 minutes to send ASNs to a partner, and if this is not achieved we can be subject to fees or lose points in programs, which is not good for the plants. We accomplish this with SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS). Similarly, payments and invoices are sent using the BIC 6 application and the time it takes to receive payments has been decreased.

Before this product, we used to use a solution that required us to write code and then go through the process. It would take five to seven days for our development team to do the code, test it, and then promote it. The SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) MFT solution is really configuration-driven. It comes with a number of adapters for file transfers. Some of these processes, which used to take five to seven days and cost an average of $5,000 per integration, can now be done in a couple of hours because of the configuration. And they cost less than $1,000 dollars overall. We are able to do faster delivery and it's much more robust, handling large files really well. And it does bring cost savings.

It is also flexible when it comes to adding integrations. We have created some frameworks and we are able to utilize those frameworks very quickly. The solution is really handy in those terms. For example, when we bought the product, we had a requirement for transferring data to Amazon S3 buckets but we did not have a solution in our shop for large data transfers to Amazon S3. We worked with SEEBURGER and created a framework solution and now, using that solution, we can configure the transfer in an hour or two and enable it to go to existing or new S3 buckets. It's a tremendously powerful solution and it gives us a lot of leverage to get things done quickly.

We had a problem. One of our biggest customers in North America, Home Depot, was sending us reports of issues with quantities and pricing. These reports were loaded into SAP, but the business people were not looking at them because SAP is cumbersome and complicated. I raised the situation with my contact at SEEBURGER, and we worked on another type of report. We developed a parallel process, which was their idea, and they provided a new report called Jasper. It converts the transaction into a human readable report and is a parallel process. We send these reports via email to the business people, who do pay attention to them now because they can see the information. They can also react much faster to customer requests.

SEEBURGER BIS is excellent for customer mapping.

SEEBURGER BIS helps us automate processes. When something is manual and we have to fix the data, then it is really complicated. However, when it's automated, we trust it and the process in the system, so we don't have to go back and fix it. For example, we had a problem with a partner sending 17 files every week, but a few times a year, they wouldn't send files during a certain window. We would escalate this with them. Then, when they caught up and sent the files again, they weren't authenticated. We had to fix this situation before it became a nightmare because our financials were impacted. Also, it was really messy. So, I worked with SEEBURGER to have something automated to pick up the files within a certain window and validate them as accurate. If the files come outside of this window, then we have to approve the loading of them.

They are audit compliant. They did their own audit and shared it with me, which was useful. If we need a list of users' accesses, then I can make the request of them. I haven't done an audit of SEEBURGER, but when they do provide me their own reports, that is good enough.

It used to take half an hour to move one file from one location to another. Now, it takes 10 minutes. 

We did not procure this software as a reason to improve our organization. We procured this software to replace the existing one.

We have found this tool useful.

The product has the ability to handle high volumes of data efficiently. The front-end has provided us the ability to see issues quickly and is enabled for quick and easy remediation.

What would have been a manual process of transmitting data items around between us and third-parties has been automated. SEEBURGER BIS handles the automation and mapping side of the communications. The automation, along with the efficiency around time and cost, has improved our organization. Around 20,000 messages a month have been automated. These typically would be financial/order transactions and confirmations in invoicing that have been automated.

SEEBURGER is a global company who offers a presence not only in the United States, but is also international across the globe. They offer world-class services, a 24/7 support model, and managed services.

We are at about 95 percent of a million files a month SLA. We have 99.9 percent uptime with it. We have a pretty good response with it, normally under four hours, and that is if there is an issue at all.

The platform has been very consistent and responsive.

We haven't had any issues with it. I've worked very hard to address any gaps which were in place when I came onboard. Therefore, we have been pleased with it.

Beforehand, we would hand-deliver via email over 100 to 200 reports a day. Then we automated that through SEEBURGER in less than two weeks.

We are going to upgrade to the new 6.7 and the API module because of the updated user interface and the additional technologies for blockchains. The API module is the most compelling reason to switch. 

It has enabled digital business processes. It's the connection between our ERP system and the rest of the company. We were able to automate processing invoices digitally like an inbound invoice and FastPay payments.

We minimized our complexity and decreased the number of systems to communicate with our partners. These are the biggest advantages that yield cost savings.

Everything now is centralized. This platform is the gate to our suppliers and customers.

The EDI implementation that we used before took a while for us. Now we are able to do it pretty quickly. For the tool that we used to have, we had specially trained developers who used to do all the development of EDI maps and the configuration. But with SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) now, we were able to train our EDI analysts, and because the tool has very simple, intuitive mapping capabilities, even our EDI analysts are able to develop all the EDI maps, do all the configurations, and do all the setups for any of the trading partners.

All in all, it has simplified our EDI implementation. It takes less time now.

In terms of adding integrations, whenever we have to, for example, add any new EDI trading partner, we are able to use existing maps that we have for other trading partners. It's like making a copy and creating a new map from that existing map and doing very minor changes here and there.

Also, when it comes to reaction time, when we started using this tool, initially, of course, we did not really have any people who were trained or had any experience on the tool. It was pretty new for us. Overall, the implementation time, the time it takes people to build new maps, has more to do with experience. But we have been able to reduce, by at least one-third, the time it takes, compared to what it used to take.

It helps in communications. It's the only gateway between our client systems and any internally-hosted or cloud-hosted systems. SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) acts as an interface between them. It provides a lot of benefits to our customers. If SEEBURGER were to go down, our company would be in limbo.

It's a very vital system. We are dependent on it because we have hundreds of major customers, all of which are big retailers. Without SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS), their orders and other communications may not go to the warehouse. There might be manual processes but that would be very hard.

We run 60 to 75 different customers, large OEMs which have between five and 15 different sites each, and every site could be a $100 million to $200 million company with its own computer system, its own EDI. In essence, our 60 to 75 customers are really several hundred customers, all sending different EDI data to us.

We use the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) platform to translate sales orders or sales schedules or planning schedules into EDI data that our ERP system can ingest. When we, in many cases, ship daily to these customers, we take our shipping data and send them an ASN and an invoice all translated through the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) 6 software. I'd estimate it's in the hundreds of shipments per day.

It's a standard inbound gateway and a standard outbound process and it does everything we need it to do.

We have enjoyed high performance and only had a few problems. The Developer Studio and the debugging tools were easy to use. We could not function without an EDI system and SB BIS 6 is our chosen EDI system.

It routes electronic messaging from other companies. The benefit of that is that there's no human intervention, so there is less opportunity for errors. That's in contrast to receiving something by fax and entering it. Here, it's going straight into your system.

SEEBURGER has all the maps for a lot of our customers, a relationship with many of them already. So the onboarding is relatively easy. That helps a lot.

We use SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) for getting orders from our customers, sending invoices out, and to have a dialogue with our warehouses. Using EDI means that there are more system-to-system interactions. That means that the people in our offices have more time to do more value-added activities, rather than just entering orders into the system.

We don't use it so that we can reduce headcount. It's more about being more efficient, adding more value to the business. Rather than sitting there mindlessly entering in orders, that is done automatically so we can use the resources elsewhere.

A big improvement was that this platform allowed us to move away from paper data transfer to digital, even with partners who are not EDI ready. This occurred through the use of a partner portal that made the data easily available to them in a digital format.

The advantages of having everything digitalized are clear and they are covered in detail by all EDI solution vendors, so I’m not going to go into that.

For us, it's all been about the fact that, for the first time ever our two facilities can support each other. Before, we had completely separate systems. One was doing EDI and one wasn't and our customers were trying to understand how we could be one company and not do things the same way. For the first time, we can start doing things the same way. That means that I can have customer service in one facility support customer service in the second facility.

We started with our Canadian plant first and got it running. When the next plant came on we were just able to say in SAP, "Here are some new ship-to's." We didn't have to start re-testing with the customer. That saved a ton of work. Not needing to retest for the next facility, because the customer had accepted our first test, was very helpful.

In terms of our reaction time, I can say we are 50 percent faster from our American plant. We aren't faster in our Canadian plant, but that's only because we're also looking at trying the on-premise, so it's just from looking at too much at once. For the American side, they wouldn't say "yes" to a customer for years, but now they can, which is great.

We can control our upgrade cycle instead of being dependent on cloud vendor timing. We are also able to build and deploy quickly, but our speed is limited by our SOX controls.

Benefit of Seeburger to GenTran (which we most recently had): In GenTran, if any batches had incorrect data, whole batches got errored out. While in Seeburger, only that particular data gets impacted. It allows other batches to flow.

It enables customization as per the organization's needs.

It has helped our organization to integrate with different systems, by having different integration methods seamlessly.