Polypipe invests in EDI software

EDI system to streamline invoicing and ordering whilst integrating directly with new ERP system.

Polypipe, one of the largest plastic piping and sanitary systems manufacturers in Europe, is upgrading to Spectrum 3 EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software from Freeway Commerce to handle invoices and orders from customers across its key sectors of residential, commercial and infrastructure.

The company has been an established user of Freeway Commerce's Spectrum 2 solution for EDI for over five years.

Polypipe plans to upgrade to Spectrum 3 at the same time as it implements a new ERP system across the Group.

The company expects to achieve significant benefit from using Freeway's software by consolidating its EDI operation with one scalable platform avoiding the need to maintain EDI systems at multiple locations.

The company selected Freeway Commerce for its track record working with individual group companies over the last 6 years and its proven skill both in rolling out electronic trading solutions and experience in the building sector as a whole, with an impressive customer list including Buildbase, Jacksons, Plumbase, NMBS and CBA.

Freeway's Spectrum 3 solution will enable Polypipe to trade with more of their customers, including some of the independent builders merchants who are just getting started with electronic trading, as well as their traditional merchant and retail customer base.

Freeway Commerce will be hosting Spectrum 3 on behalf of Polypipe, freeing up staff to concentrate on the processing of orders and invoices rather than supporting the IT systems.

Exchanging documents electronically greatly reduces errors and manual processing times for Polypipe.

Donna Madden, senior business analyst at Polypipe explained: "Freeway Commerce is approachable, responsive and really understands our requirements.

Since we moved to Freeway Commerce's solution we have been able to trade with many different partners without incurring costly development work each time as with our previous in-house system".

She continued: "While only a core group of our total customer base is already on EDI, they account for a significant element of our total business, ensuring we achieve the benefits that EDI can bring.

When we move to Spectrum 3 we will reap even more benefit from electronic trading as we extend the implementation across the group, potentially in future including our supplier community".

Sales director of Freeway Commerce, Paul Kaye, said: "Spectrum 3 is ideal for companies like Polypipe - as for many in the building services industry - who deal with many customers with many diverse requirements, ranging from small independent businesses to the large nationwide organisations.

We have developed Spectrum 3 to enable the electronic exchange of data by reducing the costs in the transport mechanisms for companies to benefit both large and small operations".

He concluded: "By consolidating all of their EDI operations in one platform and enabling integration with back-end systems, companies such as Polypipe can see demonstrable cost efficiencies with EDI.".

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