24/03/2025

Best practices for implementing EDI in supply chain management

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a powerful tool for improving efficiency, accuracy and speed in supply chain management. But simply adopting EDI isn’t enough –you need a solid implementation plan to ensure a smooth transition and maximise the benefits. Whether you’re new to EDI or looking to optimise your existing setup, following best practices can make all the difference. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get it right.

1. Get an internal team together

EDI implementation isn’t just an IT project – it affects multiple departments, including procurement, finance and logistics. Form a cross-functional team to oversee the process, ensuring that all key stakeholders are involved from the start. This will help with decision-making, troubleshooting and overall coordination. While putting together your internal team, think about your objectives. Make sure all internal departments are providing input on what they want to EDI to do for them.

2. Look at your processes and identify areas for improvement

Before diving into EDI, assess your current supply chain processes. Where are the inefficiencies? Are there bottlenecks that slow things down? Identify the pain points that EDI can help resolve, such as reducing manual data entry, minimising errors, or improving order fulfilment times. EDI isn’t just about automating transactions –it’s about improving visibility and decision-making. Consider what data you need from your supply chain to enhance forecasting and inventory management. Ensure that your EDI solution supports the exchange of this critical information. No matter where you sit in the supply chain, look at all aspects such as logistics/3PLs, suppliers, retailers, manufacturers, and warehousing.

3. Get your partners involved early

Successful EDI implementation depends on your trading partners being on board. Engage with them early to understand their capabilities, challenges and requirements. Work collaboratively to find solutions that work for everyone. This will help prevent delays and ensure a smoother rollout. Not all your suppliers and customers will be at the same level of EDI capability. Some may already be using EDI, while others might need more support. Make a list of your key trading partners and evaluate their readiness. This will help you prioritise onboarding efforts and address any potential roadblocks. Smaller suppliers may not have the resources or expertise to implement full-scale EDI. A web portal solution can make it easier for them to participate without needing a complex setup. We provide customers with a web portal solution, Colladium, that‘s free to use for your partners to send and receive EDI documents through a simple, user-friendly interface.

4. Plan for onboarding support

Onboarding partners to EDI can be a challenging process, especially for trading partners who are new to EDI. Provide clear documentation and support to help them transition smoothly. Assign a dedicated contact or team to assist with questions that may arise during implementation. Testing EDI messages with your partners is another thing that can take time and resources. A solution we provide our customers is automated message testing. It lets your business partners test the messages they’ll send you, before actually sending them. They’ll get feedback there and then. And no manual checking from your team, your partners do it all on our Colladium web portal. This takes a lot of the heavy lifting off your plate.Want to learn more about implementing EDI across your supply chain? Get in touch with our experts.

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3PLsEDILogisticsRetailersSuppliersSupply Chain

26/08/2022

EDI for 3PLs and logistics service providers

EDI has been prominent in the retail industry for decades and one area of the supply chain that benefits the most is third party logistics providers, or 3PLs. Let’s have a look.EDI replaces postal mail, fax and email, and eliminates manual inputting of data. It allows trading documents, like orders, shipping notices and more, to be exchanged electronically between businesses. EDI can help streamline and automate logistics processes, such as:
  • receiving and stocking goods
  • managing inventory
  • managing of warehouse movements
  • expediting shipments
  • refund processing
  • repackaging processes (co-packing).

An improved experience for your customers

We’ve seen 3PLs roll out EDI solutions, including portal solutions, for their customers. It makes the whole information flow between you, your customer and their customer easier. When your customer receives an order, they can accept it and at the same time, their EDI service can send a copy of it onto you so you know what to despatch, when and where. You can pick and pack the goods as usual, then when you create the shipping notice, you can send this via EDI to the recipient. Again, a copy can be sent to your customer for visibility. All of this ensures you’re not relying on PDFs and emails, and data is being exchanged in the quickest way possible.

Benefits of EDI

Cost savings

With supply chain costs going up, now is the time for logistics companies to find ways to cut costs. During busy periods instead of receiving an email or phone call every time a customer needs stock shipped, you can get the request via EDI, straight into your software for processing. You won't have to worry about missing an email, or having staff on-hand to enter the PDF into your software and you won't need to 'scan' PDFs into your software and deal with potential scanning errors.

Speed and accuracy

As your orders increase, your time to process them will only increase, unless you automate. EDI allows documents your customers need to be processed and sent faster. By reducing manual inputting, EDI also reduces the risk of inaccuracies in documents you send to your customers. Here are some stats that back the benefits:
  • can speed up your business cycles by 61%. Get documents directly into your software from your customers’ within minutes.
  • It delivers at least a 30—40% reduction in errors.

Reduced manual processing

With staff shortages a big issue around the world right now, logistics companies need to find ways to make process more efficient. With EDI, not only does your speed improve, but the pressure on your staff is reduced. EDI makes it easier for you to process more shipments with fewer people which allows you to take on more customers and more of their orders.

Compliance with retailers

If your customers supply to retailers, they’ll require documents via EDI. Send advanced shipping notices (ASNs) to the stock recipient, and even have a copy go to your customer for their visibility. Have more questions? Ask our experts by getting in touch below.

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3PLsEDILogistics