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Key to building a infrastructure that truly reflects each client's
unique business needs and system requirements is a sophisticated
toolset, TradeStone Tools, which was architected along with the
TradeStone Solutions and the Unified Buying Engine. The toolset offers
our clients the ability to build on the template-based business logic
and rules embedded in TradeStone. The ToolSet is a requirement for all
solutions because it gives the system administrator the power to adjust
workflows and information flows as the business conditions change. The
tools are comprised of:
TradeStone StepBuilder
StepBuilder allows organizations to select, modify and prioritize
pre-established steps involved in developing a product, issuing and
responding to a request for quote, generating orders and invoices,
building shipments, customs classification, and ELC / ALC development.
Steps for each user in the supply chain are assigned based on
commodity, trading countries, partner role, and mandatory or optional
conditions. As each trading partner is brought through the steps to
collaboratively contribute their information, StepBuilder's alert and
notification process ensures that responses are timely, accurate and
compliant. Missed steps that cause downstream problems are eliminated,
intensive data entry is minimized, and transactions are created that
mirror how you and your partners think and interact. StepBuilder makes
it easy to introduce new processes throughout the global community
without the costly expense associated with re-training and
re-implementation. As your process changes, steps can be added,
modified, re-prioritized, resorted, eliminated or made mandatory or
optional. When users sign on, they are presented with the new step and
walked through the completion process in a simple, intuitive
progression. StepBuilder can be accessed to build quotes, offers,
estimated landed cost models, channel allocations, size ranges,
assortments, product variations, orders (finished goods, component
materials, and aggregated orders), bills of material, invoices, packing
lists and shipments.
RFQ Example: To build a Request for Quote, the user is taken through
a series of steps and prompted to select commodity, materials, target
pricing and quantity packing, etc. Questions are asked regarding size
range and ratios, point of manufacture, potential suppliers, any
special requirements - until all the steps involved in creating an RFQ
are completed. From this, a detailed RFQ is built and e-mailed to
potential suppliers who are hyperlinked into the Offer section of the
application. The suppliers are prompted to provide cost, currency,
minimum quantities, lead times, country of origin, HTS number, etc.
which is then submitted back to TradeStone where the data is normalized
for costing, currency, transit times and availability. The buyer is
alerted as offers are received and can then proceed to compare the
offers before selecting a supplier and starting the order process.
TradeStone CompositeBuilder
When buyers or sellers access information about an item or an order,
they want to see all the data on one screen with drill down to specific
functionality for update or to obtain a more granular view. However,
that usually means going to five or more systems to accomplish the
task. CompositeBuilder leverages an organization's current technology
by giving users one view across multiple systems. The building of the
composite screen to reflect the users' workflow and business process
supports the same view of information to all participants in the
transaction and eliminates the information silos scattered throughout
the organization in multiple systems and spreadsheets - helping people
make fast, informed decisions. Behind the screen, our model-based
architecture decouples the business logic from the data model to make
transparent to the user which system is being used, while providing
extended access and functionality that spans silo systems that may
impede the ability to request, respond or react to changing market
conditions. This eliminates the need for redundant databases or
replication while reducing the amount of integration across systems.
Data anywhere means we access, read, write and update information to
and from the "owning" system.
Order Entry Example: At a current client site, legacy systems
include JDA for domestic ordering, Manhattan Associates for warehousing
and Lawson for financial processing. The customer wanted to expand the
order entry functionality to handle international orders. We built a
CompositeBuilder order entry screen that displayed and updated data
from their three systems, combined with the TradeStone Global Order
Management tables which housed information and provided functionality
to fill in the international gaps.
TradeStone QueryBuilder
QueryBuilder is used to customize user specific queries that mirror
their workflow requirements, establish daily tasks or alert them to out
of tolerance conditions. A Query can be used to select, group or sort
information in order to address a business process. This real-time
reporting capability allows users to address exceptions and solve
problems as they arise...not find out only when the wrong/defective
product is received in the warehouse.
Query Sample: A Query could list all outstanding orders with an
overdue status. The tool can easily modify queries based on business
changes and allows users to streamline the processes and provides
flexibility in building and maintaining queries, tasks and alerts.
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