Objective
Our client is one of Australia and New Zealand’s leading audio-visual distributors. They were going to implement a new WMS solution, Microlistics.
They needed an integration built which provided seamless transfer of master and transactional data between their ERP and Microlistics WMS. This avoided manual integration and meant they could take full advantage of the new technology.
They asked us to build the integration for them, as well as to advise on the transactional data flows and ensure that they were using best practice for the changed processes in their ERP.
Solution Delivery
- We took part in the initial Microlistics process workshops. We assisted with decisions regarding required transactional flows and potential changes to associated ERP processes. Integration communication protocols were also determined. Microlistics preferred SFTP transfers of pipe delimited files as the method of data transfer.
- The business Steering Committee agreed that the only Master data sent from the ERP to Microlistics would be the Inventory Master records.
- Transactional data sent from the ERP to Microlistics included Sales Orders and Purchase Orders. The users would do their Goods Receipting, Order Picking and Stock Adjustment in Microlistics. These transactions would then be sent back to the ERP.
- Our next task was to map ERP data to the pre-determined Microlistics file formats, using this information to develop the technical specification. Our technical specification included both the field/process mapping required in the file formats, per transaction type, as well as the program logic requirements in order to generate the data and files.
- The technical specification and requirements were agreed with the business, so we started programming.
- While the client had some involvement with testing, they were reliant on us to perform most of the integration testing and ERP review. This was not ideal, but occurred due to limitations with the business’s internal resource availability.
Achievements
- Despite our client’s internal resourcing issues, delivery of the integration was relatively straight-forward.
- They had some unanticipated ERP data clean-up that had to happen.
- The integration went live and they had immediate benefits from the use of the new WMS.
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