R.C. Bigelow blends BPCS product data with LANSA
R.C. Bigelow, Inc. is a family-owned company based in Fairfield, Connecticut that has been producing quality teas for 60 years and has become one of America's leading specialty tea makers. Bigelow uses LANSA Data Sync Direct to synchronize BPCS Item Master information to Wal-Mart and other retailers and will soon give brokers, distributors and regional sales managers online access to orders with LANSA Commerce Edition.
Don Janezic, CFO for Bigelow, says, "By standardizing and synchronizing product data we eliminate a tremendous amount of ad hoc point to point contact and communication of product and price changes by fax and paper forms. Now our procedures are far more efficient. Some PC solutions may have been cheaper, but a fully integrated solution using LANSA products only, without the need to hire additional staff is more cost competitive."
"LANSA is more cost competitive, as we don't need to hire additional staff"
- Three Generations of Distinction
- An Integrated GDSN Solution
- Web-based Order Entry
- RFID the next step
- Company and System Information
Three Generations of Distinction
Browser based GTIN Management
Tea from all over the world is processed and blended at the Fairfield facility and sent in bulk to packing facilities in Connecticut, Kentucky and Idaho. The packaged tea is then distributed to retailers, food service companies, and distributors. The whole process from the moment the tea leaves and other components arrive at the Fairfield facility is managed in BPCS.
"It is the processing and blending that makes our tea distinct," explains Don Janezic, CFO for Bigelow. "We use blending equipment which is very different from our competitors and we believe our blending process is a very special skill. Only three Bigelow family members know the secret to blending our flagship "Constant Comment" tea. For three generations, family members have gone behind closed doors to prepare the various secret components for blending."
While "Constant Comment" has been a classic for 50 years, Bigelow's product assortment is not static. As well as a wide and ever evolving variety of teas, Bigelow also sells teatime treats, tea chests, gift baskets, teapots and accessories.
"Keeping track manually of when customers were last updated about new products, changed packaging and prices required a lot of effort and wasn't centralized," continues Janezic.
"Long before Wal-Mart made using the GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network) a requirement for suppliers, we realized that the benefits of product synchronization could be tremendous and that posting information about our products globally was the basis for all future electronic trading."
"We wanted to be ahead of the curve and prepared for any request, so we looked at product data synchronization and self-service Web solutions and it boiled down to three vendors. The LANSA references were excellent. Being able to discuss the performance of the LANSA implementation team and the LANSA product itself was very important to us, as was LANSA's ability to directly integrate with BPCS. We didn't want data replication or multiple levels of applications."
"LANSA integrates directly with BPCS, without data replication or multiple levels of applications"
An Integrated GDSN Solution
Bigelow appointed Steve Childs, cost accounting manager at Bigelow, to lead the GDSN implementation team of business users from marketing, purchasing, production, finance and IT areas. After an executive level training session by AGSA (Association of Global Standards Administrations), the team learned to understand the process flow from the point of getting an idea for a new product, implementing this in BPCS and getting it out to retailers and brokers via 1SYNC, a GDSN certified data pool. LANSA implemented the software and provided training and support and helped to map BPCS data to the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) information.
"Mapping of attributes between LANSA's Data Sync Direct and BPCS was easy," says Childs. "LANSA's user interface is very friendly and self-explanatory. LANSA Data Sync Direct complements BPCS with a large number of attributes. For example, we didn't describe aspects such as the height, weight, and depth of finished products centrally in BPCS. We only had this information on individual PC documents. And those documents were only as accurate as the last person who looked at them and added items to it."
"Now we keep the data centrally. And because the BPCS and LANSA solution are integrated, we don't have double file maintenance. We have ended up with much cleaner and more complete set of data."
"Implementation to the first retailer, Wal-Mart, went very smooth," continues Childs. "We are now ready for implementation to Wegmans, Ahold and Safeway."
Bob Dupree, IT director at Bigelow, adds, "GDSN requirements made us take a good look at our Item Master and the validity of our data. LANSA provided us with the means to publish our data to the Global Registry in a quick and efficient manner."
"By standardizing and synchronizing product data we eliminate a tremendous amount of point to point contact that we otherwise would do on an ad hoc basis," says Janezic.
"Previously we notified customers of new products and price changes by fax and product introduction forms. Now our procedures are far more standardized and efficient. As soon as new items come in to the operation, they are immediately and accurately identified and entered into the Global Registry. And this is all done by business users, IT does not have to get involved."
"We now have internal controls in place to maintain the accuracy of the database that describes our products. LANSA Data Sync Direct and GDSN have given us that discipline."
"Now our procedures are far more standardized and efficient"
Web-based Order Entry
Now that GDSN is in place, Bigelow wants to make ordering easier for its customers. While large orders arrive partly via traditional EDI, a larger number of small orders arrive by fax and phone. "Web-based order entry seems ideal for small customers, while direct Machine-to-Machine (M2M) transactions may be the best answer for our large customers," says Janezic.
"Fax orders involve too much manual effort on both sides and there is no real way to confirm between parties that a fax has been sent and received," explains Janezic. "Faxes are not always easy to read and manual data entry is another source of errors."
Bigelow is currently implementing LANSA Commerce Edition to extend their BPCS system to the Web to let customers place and track orders online. Customers, mobile sales and customer service staff will also gain browser access to real-time inventory, customer, product, pricing and account status details. Bigelow expects that between 600 and 800 customers as well as 15 regional sales mangers will use the Web self-service solution.
"Eventually we may use LANSA Web Order Entry to enter orders that arrive by fax, if it proves more flexible and friendly than our legacy order entry system," says Janezic. "Using LANSA Web Order Entry for all order processing will add to efficiency and flexibility and reduce the throughput time and error rate."
Additional advantages are expected in the processing of customer samples via LANSA Web Order Entry. At present, most sample requests are processed using email with the regional sales managers sending documents through two or three individuals before they get entered as orders in BPCS. Allowing managers to order directly will streamline that process and the regional manager will be able to follow up on customer orders online.
Bigelow will also implement LANSA Sell-Side Direct to allow secure M2M sales transactions over the Internet and accept electronic orders directly from its customers' procurement systems, into BPCS' order fulfillment module.
LANSA Sell-Side Direct is template-based and Bigelow can choose which data elements to accept and what to send back as a response. Bigelow expects that XML and EDI will be the format that most customers will choose, but can offer CSV and XLS spreadsheet formats as well.
"About 15 to 20 customers represent 80 percent of our food service business," says Janezic. "We received very positive response from this group. As the M2M technology matures and becomes a common feature in the ERP and POS systems of our customers, we expect this group to grow."
"Implementation to the first retailer, Wal-Mart, went very smooth"
RFID the Next Step
Childs concludes, "A next step in product synchronization and GDSN is the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Wal-Mart has announced that its top-100 vendors will soon need to implement RFID. We are following this development with interest. Currently the technology is too expensive for relatively inexpensive products like ours, but we are happy to see that LANSA is one of the front runners in RFID, as it is in product data synchronization."
"LANSA is the perfect solutions partner for Bigelow," says Dupree. "The LANSA tools complement our existing software, BPCS and AS/400 infrastructure. In times when hiring additional staff is just not feasible, LANSA's tools are proving to be productive, flexible and easy-to-use for my current staff."
"We are full of praise for LANSA. We like the product and find LANSA people to be among the best service providers we have dealt with," says Janezic.
"Some PC solutions may have been cheaper in terms of out-the-box price. But LANSA is more cost competitive, as it gives us a fully integrated solution using LANSA products only and without the need to hire additional staff."
"We are full of praise for LANSA. We like the product and find LANSA people to be among the best service providers we have dealt with"
Company and System Information
- R.C. Bigelow, Inc. blends and markets traditional black and herbal teas under the Bigelow brand. Constant Comment - a blend of black tea, orange peel, and spices - is the company's original product. Bigelow also sells tea and tea accessories direct to consumers through its Web site and catalog business. Founded by Ruth C. Bigelow in the late 1940's, the company is still owned and operated by the Bigelow family. Bigelow employs approximately 360 people.
- Bigelow's IT is centered in Fairfield. All solutions run on an iSeries model 820. There are on average 140 internal users using the system.
- For more information visit: www.bigelowtea.com
LANSA Data Sync Direct is a turnkey, scalable business solution used by more than 300 businesses to comply with retailer requests for data synchronization. The solution may be implemented in a hosted or behind-the-firewall configuration on Windows, IBM iSeries or i5 Systems and Linux. LANSA Data Sync Direct is certified by 1SYNC™ and also conforms to the latest EAN.UCC XML schema version.- 1SYNC is a company that provides item registry and data synchronization for electronic commerce.
- Find out more about LANSA's GDSN Solution
- BPCS or Business Planning and Control System from SSA Global, is one of the popular iSeries (AS/400) solutions that address the core system needs of industrial sector companies.
- LANSA Commerce Edition - for BPCS was developed by LANSA and is available for BPCS CD, BPCS 6 and BPCS 8.
- Bigelow is using BPCS 6.2 ERP.