Retail Business-to-Business Integration (B2Bi)

TIE Helps Downtown Locker Room Manage EDI Processes In-house for a Fraction of the Cost.

Company Profile

Downtown Locker Room (DTLR) has been the leading retailer in the urban fashion industry, including apparel, footwear, and music, for more than 20 years. The company operates in six regions of the United States with locations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington D.C. DTLR consistently features the latest designs from such premier brands as Nike, Adidas, Timberland, Rocawear, Enyce, Coogi, and Akademiks.

Situation Analysis

Downtown Locker Room was seeking a more effective means for communicating electronically with the company’s vendors. It was imperative that DTLR improve visibility into shipping from vendors and be able to cut down the errors associated with erroneous codes. The company also understood that, by improving electronic communication, they could effectively speed merchandise to the warehouse and storefront. This would reduce inventory costs and increase sales.

DTLR evaluated several systems and managed services for EDI and eventually chose TIE Kinetix, the solution recommended by Epicor. It was essential that the EDI system be easily integrated with Epicor CRS, the company’s merchandising solution, and with that integration be able to deliver proven performance.

Challenges:

• More effective means required for communicating with vendors electronically

• Improved visibility into shipping from vendors and reduce erroneous codes

• EDI system must integrate seamlessly with existing Epicor CRS solution

Recommended TIE solution

The TIE Kinetix eBusiness platform offers the industry’s leading Business-to-Business Integration solution, including applications for advanced data transformation, integration, and workflow. It also includes XML, EDI, and database translation engines that are powerful enough to process large volumes of data and eliminate the many processing barriers that hinder rapid XML/EDI translation.

TIE software provides a complete solution for sending and receiving EDI, XML, and non-formatted messages over multiple communication protocols, including value-added network services (VANS) and the Internet. It also features the tools that are necessary to effectively manage enterprise data transformation based on specific application integration requirements. TIE addresses fundamental integration requirements and simplifies data mapping, allowing maps to be tailored to individual need regardless of format, source and destination, or complexity of business rules.

Results

With the implementation of TIE software, Downtown Locker Room is able to share purchase orders electronically with vendors and receive advanced ship notices in return. This gives the company substantially higher visibility into vendor shipping, which they can anticipate and process with far more accuracy.

In fact, DTLR believes that order accuracy will save them considerable time and money. Precise UPC codes in the system means that products move very quickly from the delivery truck, through the warehouse, and onto the shelf. The company is able to do more with the vendors as well, including receiving product at the carton level and in some cases benefiting from free shipping.

TIE Kinetix enables DTLR to manage their EDI messaging in-house using their current staff. Some managed services vendors, according to the company, claimed that Downtown Locker Room would need to hire an EDI specialist at $90,000 per year in order to manage their EDI processes in-house. TIE allows the company to use managed services strategically, for vendor implementations, and still manage their EDI processes in-house at a substantially lower cost.

“Even with limited experience, we’ve found TIE software to be very easy to use. EDI messaging is second nature to us now and the system runs automatically. The system was installed and our staff was trained in just a few days.”

Tim Sayers
Director of IT
Downtown Locker Room