Oiles & SPS Commerce : A Success Story
Oiles is a premier automotive parts manufacturer of self-lubricating bearings and damping devices, with 79 global trading partners representing thousands of B2B transactions per month. Oiles uses SAP as its ERP.
- Customer Type:
Supplier - Industry:
Automotive Manufacturing - Headquarters:
Concord, NC
- SPS Product:
Fulfillment - ERP:
SAP - Customer Since:
2018
Outgrowing Legacy Systems
Like many manufacturers who implemented business process integration and automation systems on their own at the dawn of the EDI revolution, Oiles had outgrown their legacy systems. Excessive manual data entry, a lack of process visibility, and high error rates were the result of a patchwork collection of on-premise systems and spaghetti code tying everything together. Meanwhile, automating transactions into SAP, producing basic transaction reporting, and onboarding new customers was a headache and time-consuming.
Reducing Errors
SPS recommended replacing a legacy mapping translator with its SPS Commerce Fulfillment solution with system automation. The EDI solution for SAP would provide automated error handling, data enrichment, portal and email alert workflow tools, and in-depth transaction reporting. Meanwhile, a cloud approach would allow SPS to integrate and automate transactions into SAP via distributed agents that would enable scale.
SPS also recommended a phased implementation approach to limit the interruption of normal business operations for customers.
Migrating Customers with No Disruption
After conducting a comprehensive audit, including gathering EDI mapping and SAP integration requirements, SPS started development and testing. After the process of testing eleven EDI document types across 79 trading partners was complete, customers were migrated in groups to the SPS solution within 45 days.
Transaction integration and automation into SAP were performed concurrently. SPS configured business rules to conform to Oiles’ unique processes and set distributed agents inside the Oiles firewall to integrate with SAP.
SPS deployed data enrichment processes, error handling tools, and configurable reporting options that eliminated manual entry and provided near real-time access to transaction information.
Post-implementation, Oiles experienced a 24 percent reduction in transaction errors, a 52 percent increase in error resolution speed, and a 25 percent improvement in system uptime over what they experienced with their legacy mapping tool. An improvement in cash flow was also experienced as a result of the streamlined order-to-cash process.
All aspects of the project were completed without Oiles customers knowing there was a change.
The Interviewee:
Sally Mentillo, Business Analyst
The Challenge:
Excessive manual data entry, a lack of process visibility, and high error rates.
The Solution:
Automated error handling, data enrichment, portal and email alert workflow tools, and in-depth transaction reporting from a cloud solution integrated with SAP to enable scale.
The Results:
A 24% reduction in transaction errors, a 52% increase in error resolution speed, and a 25% improvement in system uptime.
“SPS facilitated our transition from an on-premise EDI tool to their cloud solution. As an automotive company, transaction execution has to be air tight, and we couldn’t be happier. We saw a significant reduction in errors and error resolution time, along with a big increase in system uptime, leading to markedly improved stability and a happier customer base. Project management and implementation were so effective that our customers didn’t notice a change, and the support team was as responsive as advertised.”
– Sally Mentillo
Additional References
Read more about full-service EDI and other stories of how we’ve helped businesses optimize their supply chains and increase sales.
