Steel processor uses EDI to improve data communications, partner onboarding

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Situation

Louisville, Ky.-based Steel Technologies produces flat-rolled steel to specific requirements for customers in a variety of industries, including automotive, appliance, lawn and garden, office equipment, agricultural, machinery, and construction. The organization operates 24 facilities throughout North America, processing more than 3.1 million tons of steel for more than 1,000 customers.

The steel processor exchanges nearly 2,000 EDI documents a day with customers, suppliers, and vendors over FTP and SFTP. These include invoices, inventory inquiries, advance ship notices, and order status reports, but the communications layer on its PC-based EDI system, which the company had been using for more than four years, wasn’t very user-friendly. The system lacked adequate monitoring and error handling capabilities, and when transfers failed (which happened about 20 percent of the time), resending those files triggered a host of manual processes. The system depended heavily on internal customization and manual intervention to keep connections up and working, provided no real-time alerts to indicate communication errors, and was limited in its reporting capabilities.

“Every time we wanted to implement a new FTP connection, we had to modify the program to get it working,” explained Senior Software Engineer Mike Hoben. “It was taking two months to onboard a new trading partner because there was so much code to change. It was extremely difficult to manage, and we had no visibility into dropped communications.”

And with the company’s recent entry into aluminum processing and increased business from the automotive sector, it was facing new customer demands and more complex integration requirements.

Resolution

Hoben, who had worked with Cleo technology previously, approached Cleo, a provider of ecosystem integration software, about a more advanced communications system for Steel Technologies. The steel processor deployed the Cleo Integration Cloud integration platform and upgraded its critical EDI communications.

The integration platform enables a business to connect, move, transform, and orchestrate ecosystem, cloud, application, and big data integration flows via self-service and managed-service experiences. It offers automation and intuitive controls to help users connect and consolidate their systems, applications, services, people, and processes.

With the new technology, the company gained faster, easier partner onboarding and the ability to respond rapidly in the event of communication errors. In addition, better system-generated alerts, notifications, tracking, and reporting have improved real-time visibility and control. The steel processor now has a secure, stable platform that can scale as needed, allowing the company to meet customer service-level agreements and improve order-to-cash cycles with its manufacturing partners.

Cleo, cleo.com