This Week in IDEA | October 17, 2007

New IRD CERICOMX® Customers

IDEA, a 1SYNC Data Pool On-Board Solution (OBS) partner, implements suppliers that subscribe to the 1SYNC data pool using IDEA's IRD CERICOMX® application. IDEA was recently assigned two suppliers:

• Styro Industries
• American Promotional Events, Inc.

These companies will be trained to use IRD CERICOMX®, an IDEA branded product for supporting and uploading supplier product information into the GS1 Registry® and GDSN via the 1SYNC Data Pool.

If you would like to learn more about the CERICOMX® product, please contact John Etrie, IRD Product & Customer Support Manager, at (703) 562-4624.

Back To Top

IDX Tracker 2.5 Successfully Completes Beta Testing

IDEA is proud to announce the IDX Tracker 2.5 recently completed beta testing and the appropriate updates have been made based on feedback from the companies involved. These companies were impressed with the enhancements and excited to experience the additional benefits the new features will provide the supply network.

“The new IDX document number search and tracking feature will save my staff countless hours searching for specific EDI documents. It will also give us the ability to provide better tracking of the invoices sent to our customers. Instead of building this functionality ourselves, we will be able to focus resources on enabling new customers. You have saved us time and money so we are happy customers,” said Brenda Maxwell, EDI Manager, Acuity Brands Lighting.

Some of the notable Tracker 2.5 enhancements include:

• More translation and routing options
  • HTML
  • XML
• Additional search options
  • Search by PO, Invoice, etc.
  • Search by Branch, Ack (Y/N), etc.
• Improved audit trails and problem resolution
  • 997 Reconciliation
  • Multiple contacts including primary, off-hours, etc.
• Faster Interconnections
  • Direct, high speed interconnections

Plans for launching the Tracker 2.5 for full production access are currently in process. Please contact IDX Program Director, Tom Guzik, at (703) 562-4626 for more information.

Back To Top

Square D, a brand of Schneider Electric, Now Automating Net Price Updates to IDW

Square D (SQD), a global brand of Schneider Electric, recently began implementing an automated process to update Net Pricing data via the Industry Data Warehouse (IDW). The IDW Net Price into Stock feature enables manufacturers to populate all their Net Price files in one location and allows only authorized distributors to download their specific Net Price data. Data is secure as it moves through the system using state-of-the-art tools.

With the new automated process, Square D is now sending updated Net Pricing data to distributors via IDW on a weekly basis without human intervention. This new automated process will replace the manual process that was used to provide distributors monthly updates upon an ad hoc request.

According to Ann Adams, Channel Development/Operations Manager at SQD Schneider Electric, Square D began the development of this process to eliminate the need for long hours of manual work and to ensure accurate pricing information is delivered on time. The automated process also allows Square D to inform distributors of the exact date of the price change compared to only the yearly effective date from the previous process.

“Manual processing was time consuming, unreliable, and simply inefficient. Because SQD Schneider Electric strives to be the ‘Easy to do Business with Manufacturer’, we wanted to support this concept but do it more efficiently and productively,” said Adams.

The new automated process makes it simple for Square D to send Net Price data to multiple distributors simultaneously through IDW. Square D is now updating IDW with Net Pricing for fifty individual distributor accounts. This automation helps eliminate price discrepancies and moves Square D one step closer to complete data synchronization with their distributors.

BL Robinson, a distributor of Square D products, is already benefiting from Square D’s effort to automate Net Pricing updates in IDW.

“Net pricing in IDW has created huge efficiency gains for us. The pricing comes in a standard format and is part of our normal update procedure which keeps our system pricing current and reduces purchase order price problems. We save time by pulling the information from IDW instead of having to create separate imports. We love it,” said Joe Wallace, Data/Pricing Administration Manager, Van Meter Industrial/BL Robinson.

Distributors are encouraged to take advantage of this information. To get started today, contact Ann Adams, SQD Schneider Electric, at 859-485-2907 or ann.adams@us.schneider-electric.com.  

To learn more about providing Net Pricing data to IDW, contact the IDW Product Director, Bob Whitehouse, at (703) 562-4608.

Back To Top

Make Your Mark: Attend the IDEA Standards Committee Meetings

The IDEA Standards Committee continues to develop standards to address needs identified by members within the Electrical Industry, by which data is exchanged efficiently throughout the channel. It is important that you are there to provide input for the standards that will affect the entire supply network. Everyone involved in the industry including manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers are welcome. The dates for the next IDEA Standards Committee and Subcommittee meetings are:

EDI Subcommittee meeting:
Tuesday, December 4, 2007: 1:00 - 4:00PM

Data Content Subcommittee meeting:
Wednesday, December 5, 2007: 8:00AM – 12:00PM

Full IDEA Standards Committee meeting:
Wednesday, December 5, 2007: 1:00- 5:00PM
Thursday, December 6, 2007: 8:00AM – 12:00PM

The meetings will be held in the IDEA offices in Arlington, VA. Arrangements are being made to block rooms at the Hilton Crystal City, located directly across the street from the office.

Please contact Mary Shaw, Standards Director, at (647) 722-3406 no later than October 26 if you plan to attend.

Back To Top

IDEA E-Biz Forum Report

Attendees at last month’s IDEA meeting in Vancouver said IDEA needs to convince more senior industry executives that the investment in building enriched data files for their product offerings will pay off.

By: Jim Lucy, Chief Editor, Electrical Wholesaling

IDEA’s merry band of e-commerce crusaders traveled from all points of the compass north to Canada for their ninth annual meeting of the electrical industry’s IT tribes, the IDEA Electro E-Biz Forum held Sept. 18-20 at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, Vancouver, British Columbia.

While the 150-plus meeting attendees came from a diverse mix of large and small electrical distributors, manufacturers and technology companies, they share some common dreams and frustrations. As the electrical industry’s earliest e-business implementers, they believe IDEA’s arsenal of e-business tools will help members radically improve net profits by eliminating data errors and streamlining their business processes.

But they are an impatient lot. Although the electrical market is light years ahead of most other vertical market segments in the wholesale-distribution world, some meeting attendees were frustrated that manufacturers are not further along in improving online product searches by populating the Industry Data Warehouse (IDW) with more enriched data and by developing a standardized product classification system.

The meeting also had a bittersweet air because it was the last IDEA conference that Mike Rioux would attend as the group’s president, since the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED), St. Louis, announced his departure and search for his successor last month. Rioux led IDEA through some tough financial times during the early years of his tenure, and the group is now solidly in the black. Many IDEA supporters were shocked at the news of his departure and say he will be sorely missed.

Despite these challenges, IDEA members had much to celebrate at the meeting. IDEA’s membership now includes 362 electrical distributors, 128 electrical manufacturers and nine independent manufacturers’ reps, and these companies have access to 2 million stock-keeping units (SKUs) in the IDW. Rioux also unveiled IDEA’s new Web site and corporate rebranding at the meeting. IDEA’s completely redesigned Web site at www.idea-esolutions.com offers a calculator that helps users compare the cost of IDEA’s EDI capabilities to other VANs, live-chat capabilities and new navigational tools that make information on IDEA and its services much easier to find.

Keynote speaker Adam Fein, president, Pembroke Consulting, Philadelphia, batted leadoff at the forum and said the electrical market is much further along the path toward seamless electronic communication between manufacturers, distributors, reps and end users than most other vertical segments in the wholesale-distribution industry. As author of the latest “Facing the Forces of Change” study published earlier this year by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), Washington, D.C., Fein sees many distribution trades grappling with e-commerce issues. He says the cost-savings that e-business can generate when engineered properly can help users differentiate their services from competitors and adapt their businesses to customers’ changing needs. While he doesn’t see a doomsday scenario for distributors that take a pass on e-commerce, he says those companies won’t grow as fast as the distributors that do apply this technology strategically to their businesses. “Distributors either have to change or will drift,” he said. “Many distributors can get by running on fumes until they sell out or go out of business.”

Art Cook, president, Buckles-Smith, San Jose, Calif., agreed with Fein and said while many electrical distributors are drifting along and won’t go bankrupt if they don’t belong to IDEA or build out their IT systems, not doing so will minimize their expansion opportunities. “It’s not like we are going to go out of business without good data,” he said. “It’s about losing share.”

A consistent theme at this year’s Electro E-Biz Forum was the need for manufacturers to load their product records in the IDW with “enriched” or “attributed” data that allows users to search for products by a variety of search parameters and include images, line drawings and other basic graphics.

Rioux said the need for enriched data was, “the biggest challenge that the channel has today.” Of its 2 million SKUs, IDEA’s IDW has an estimated 400,000 SKUs of enriched data. An estimated 350,000 SKUs come from the Trade Service database and not directly from IDEA manufacturer-members. The use of the Trade Service data feed seems to conflict with one of IDEA’s founding principles, that if all manufacturers were responsible for the maintenance of their own product data in the IDW, third-party firms would not have to provide that function.

The need for this enriched data becomes quickly apparent when one checks out the shopping experiences that customers enjoy with the robust online stores www.grainger.com, www.llbean.com and www.landsend.com, said David Starr, director of eBusiness, McNaughton- McKay Electric Co. These sites are considered the gold standard in online shopping, and he said if IDEA’s efforts are to reach their fullest potential, members will eventually have to offer similar shopping experiences. Because each product item on these retail sites has enriched data, customers can search using a wide variety of parameters.

Meeting attendees also got an early 2008 economic forecast from Don Leavens, vice president and chief economist, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Rosslyn, Va. In the manufacturing sector, he expects commercial equipment (9.8 percent); heavy trucks (12.1 percent) and aerospace (13.8 percent) to show the greatest annual percent change in industrial production. In the construction market, he expects the manufacturing (8.4 percent); power (8.8 percent); and office (12 percent) markets to show the highest annual percent change in real value put-in-place.

The 2008 IDEA Electro E-Biz Forum will be held at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel near Washington, D.C., Sept 14-16, 2008.

Excerpts from Electrical Wholesaling

More Information

Back To Top

Did You Know? IDW Hot Fact

In manufacturer descriptions, many companies use the quote symbol (") to represent inches. However, this can cause difficulties with some distributors' backend systems. The IDW mapper has a transformation to replace character strings; thus the quote symbol can be replaced with inches. Caution should be used with this transformation; it is applied only to manufacturers who use the quote for inches. A similar replacement can be done for single quotes (') representing feet.

Back To Top