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ERP Integrated Solutions Partners with Loftware to Improve Supply Chain Efficiency for SAP Companies

Transforming Supply Chain Data Integrity, Enabling Regulatory Compliance and Meeting Growing Demands in This Experience Economy

LONG BEACH, Calif. and PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – November 5, 2019 – ERP Integrated Solutions, Inc., a multi-carrier shipping software provider and Loftware, Inc., a global market leader in Enterprise Labeling and Artwork Management Solutions, today announced a new strategic partnership to optimize supply chain management for companies leveraging SAP business solutions. The partnership which involves a shared go-to-market strategy for meeting the needs of SAP customers, offers a combined end-to-end labeling and shipping solution which improves supply chain data integrity, enables regulatory compliance, meets increasing customer demand and improves overall efficiencies resulting in cost and time savings.

As an SAP Certified solution provider, ERP Integrated Solutions works with all major carriers to provide solutions for transportation and technology needs to improve supply chain implementation and decrease processing time. Providing Enterprise Labeling with SAP Certified integration, Loftware will partner with ERP Integrated Solutions, enabling companies to create, manage and print supply chain labels for all of their inventory, distribution and fulfillment demands across a global network.

“In today’s experience economy, businesses must keep up with the demand of consumer needs, everchanging regulations and company expansions. With extensive SAP Supply Chain expertise, we help clients streamline their business processes and eliminate inefficiencies within the supply chain while adhering to SAP best practices,” said Joseph Cabrera, Managing Partner of ERP Integrated Solutions. “This exciting collaboration with Loftware will help us provide clients with scalable solutions to increase the overall efficiency of their supply chain.”

Both companies serve a wide range of industries including life sciences, automotive and manufacturing and together are able to help SAP-run businesses automate their rate shopping, shipping and tracking, while also helping them meet increasing customer and regulatory requirements for labeling to help avoid risk of fines and business disruption.

 “We’re excited to further our relationship with ERP Integrated Solutions, especially as the need for Enterprise Labeling and multi-carrier shipping solutions becomes increasingly important in mastering the complexity of multi-channel distribution in today’s global supply chain,” stated Allen Patrick, Loftware VP of Sales, Americas. “Our partnership creates new efficiencies for businesses using SAP, enabling those companies to leverage existing data and business processes to drive top line revenue growth, improve customer responsiveness, cut cost and offer seize growth opportunities.”

About Loftware 

Loftware is the global market leader in Enterprise Labeling and Artwork Management solutions with more than 5,000 customers in over 100 countries. Offering the industry’s most comprehensive digital platform, with SaaS, cloud-based and on-premise solutions, Loftware redefines how enterprises create, manage and print complex labeling and packaging artwork and scale across their operations. Loftware solutions integrate with SAP®, Oracle® and other enterprise applications to produce mission-critical barcode labels, documents, RFID smart tags and packaging artwork. Our combined platform–whether for labeling, artwork management or both–enables customers to uniquely meet regulatory mandates, mitigate risk, reduce complexity, ensure traceability, improve time to market and optimize costs as they meet customer-specific, brand, regional and regulatory requirements with unprecedented speed and agility.

About ERP Integrated Solutions 

As the creator of ShipERP, ERP Integrated Solutions is dedicated to increasing supply chain efficiencies for businesses looking to transform their order-to-cash process via shipment optimization. ShipERP is the SAP-certified solution to fulfill your business shipping requirements, whether it’s small parcel shipping, less than truckload (LTL), or a combination of them all. ERP Integrated Solutions helps businesses to seamlessly integrate over 250 shipping carriers to increase the effectiveness of their shipping operation. This allows the business to focus on reducing freight costs as well as closely managing the shipping process to achieve better efficiencies. Experience maximum innovation and efficiency via integrated carrier rate quoting, transportation planning, shipping compliance, and other functionalities. 

View our other partners.

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Top 5 Lessons Learned from Integrating Shipping within SAP EWM

Managing a fast-paced and high-volume warehouse while implementing complicated supply chain logistics is a wild ride. With this complex process in mind, adopting SAP EWM may be in your near future to assist in automating end-to-end logistics. The great thing about taking on SAP EWM is that it will help to optimize quality, production, and distribution operations. 

Here are the top 5 lessons learned from integrating shipping within SAP EWM: 

If an extension is required, make sure that your business meets the following criteria: 

  • The extension is a mandatory requirement and no process change can be put into place to avoid this enhancement. 
  • Quantify the costs and benefits of acquiring the enhancement against the effort spent in developing and maintaining the system.  
  • Ensure that the solution is compatible with upgrades that the company may need in the future. 
  • Use automated shipping services to make sure that it creates carrier compliant labels.

1. Use Standard Functionality as Much as Possible 

When mapping your business process to SAP EWM, leverage the standard business scenarios and configurations offered by SAP and perform enhancements only when it is vital to supply chain and business success.

For a successful project deployment, we need to have a clear view of which metrics should be used. Define the following critical metrics at the beginning of the project and track them throughout the duration and end of the project: 

2. Define and Track your Metrics 

  • Numeric Metrics – Compare current vs future volume, packages shipped per day, total cost of current solution ownership vs SAP EWM ownership, and downtime improvements. 
  • Strategic Metrics – Improvements in visibility on the supply chain process and cost reductions on the freight cost due to process simplifications and shipping integration. 

3. Prepare for Change Management 

If you are moving from a mainframe process to SAP EWM there is a vast process change, and users need to be prepared upfront on the requirements on the new system. Train end users accordingly and engage with key stakeholders at each stage of the project. This practice will ensure that they know what is coming so that they can prepare for potential activities; this process leads to a smoother transition.

4. Choose your Partners Wisely 

Creating a selection strategy to acquire the right partner for the SAP EWM deployment project is crucial to your EWM success. Furthermore, selecting the best partner will reduce your implementation turmoil. The selection strategy should evaluate the partners on their track record on EWM deployments on your industry, their implementation approach, as well as their leadership and change management strategies. You may apply the same criteria for additional shipping services when selecting partners for shipping conveyor solutions, voice automation, etc. 

5. Automate as Much as Possible 

SAP EWM provides a variety of standard automation functionalities such as wave picking, RF functionalities, voice picking, etc. With that said, automate where ever possible to ensure less manual intervention and errors. Label creation, print and apply solutions, hazardous material documentation can be automated. In turn, automation will reduce user errors, leading to increased efficiency and profits. Furthermore, it replaces tribal knowledge with system driven data. 

This article was written by Leo Gift.

How Shipment Tracking Data Can Protect Your Business

In today’s supply chain, every item requires tracking regardless of size, value, or function. It is important to identify every product of the supply chain, whether it be microchips for medical devices or ingredients for a food product, to understand how the product can be safely and legally transported to the recipient. Shipment tracking data also applies to audit consisting of records of time, location, date, and person, since companies need an audit trail. This is where IT plays a major role in maintaining and storing those records. 

However, not everyone thinks about shipment tracking and proof of delivery. It is just as important as the machine that makes the product and the source of the ingredients. The following outlines how shipment tracking data can protect your business.

90 days may be all you get! 

Did you know that most parcel shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, DHL, and USPS don’t keep your tracking and proof of delivery data for very long? In many instances, major parcel carriers keep shipment tracking data for up to 90 days and proof of delivery signatures for up to 18 months. If you wish to store this information longer, it’s wise to look into backing up the data in your own ERP system.

Shipment tracking data identifies room for improvement. 

Shipment tracking data is involved in every step when the item changes hands – everything is recorded from creating a label, delivery to the shipper, transfer to a plane or truck, and distribution at the local facility. However, issues might occur along the way. For instance, temperature or elevation changes in the plane, truck, or ship can affect the product quality. While these are minor and rare instances in reliable containers, it could affect the chemicals and packaging within your product.

According to Mary Sherman from a chemical company, she recounts how tracking can save your company from being liable. “We had a lot of trouble with shipping companies denting and damaging barrels. When we release our product, we are constantly tracking it because of damage during transit. If any particles get into our product, it’s no longer acceptable to the end user.” 

More importantly, having all the shipment tracking data implies greater data integrity to ensure that you and your company are protected. 

Proof of Delivery is the best way to prevent fraud. 

Another feature of shipment tracking data is proof of delivery. Proof of delivery includes a recipient-provided signature to prove to all parties that the shipment arrived at a specific location, date, and time.

Did you know that medical device manufacturers are required by the FDA to track the entire supply chain? At a minimum, research records are required to be available for three years, but in 30 years in some medical instances. Recently at a conference, one company suggested that they are required to keep an audit trail of up to seven years for electronic sensors. Not only is it beneficial for auditing to have proof of delivery, but it can prove to all parties that the right person received the shipment, therefore protecting your company from fraud accusations.

According to Doug Cole, Vice President of Operations at ERP Integrated Solutions, “It’s very low cost to download and store tracking data.  Most of that data is held in a table and makes up just a kilobyte at most.  With ShipERP, we are able to store even the PDF as a string with very low data cost for millions of shipments.” 

How long do you need to keep shipment tracking data? 

Even with the tiny data storage cost, few shipping solutions offer long term data storage. So, how long do you need to keep shipment tracking data? It’s up to the individual company to make it a priority based on the industry, the global and local laws involved, customer demands, and business needs.  

At ERP Integrated Solutions, we help to seamlessly retrieve tracking data from shipping carriers and store it locally, which addresses historical data maintenance and data compliance. If you have any questions about maintaining your shipment tracking data, reach out to ERP Integrated Solutions to discuss your options.

This article was written by Daniel Robert Sherman.