Woco Group: DiCentral's Managed Services Comply With MMOG/LE Guidelines

THE CHALLENGE

EDI document transactions between Ford and Woco occurred on a portal provided by Ford. Because of global standards for supply chain management processes that provide industry best practices (called MMOG/LE), Ford recommended that Woco create an EDI compliance program for their Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers. Ford officials arranged to visit Woco for inspections to ensure that these stringent guidelines were being met, adding to the pressure
to find an EDI program capable of quick implementation and onboarding.

The main challenge Woco faced was the excessive amount of manual data entry required to process orders and enter the relevant information into their ERP. The company used a customized ERP solution that was not integrated with their 45+ suppliers, and most of their suppliers were not using any ERP. The exchange of documents and acknowledgments of orders were all processed via email or phone call. The process of receiving and sending invoices to every supplier for different orders on Excel or PDF format was not only time consuming but also greatly increased the risk of inaccurate data caused by human entry error. To make the process easier Woco also wanted their suppliers to print and apply VDA labels to their products. (VDA is a data format used by Ford in Europe for EDI messages.)

SOLUTION

To comply with the MMOG/LE guidelines and remain a Tier 1 supplier of Ford, Woco opted for DiCentral’s Managed Services Solution, due to their global presence and understanding of unique automotive EDI standards. The supply chain optimization process was split into two phases. In the first phase, Woco chose 25 suppliers, and DiCentral provided Woco & these suppliers with a web-based management tool for exchanging EDI documents and printing VDA labels. With this tool, DiCentral accelerated communications dramatically. The supplier could send the acknowledgement of PO on the same portal. The solution streamlined the order process between Woco and their suppliers, accepting order invoice exchanges in EDI format and then downloading them in Excel or PDF format before printing & applying VDA labels to the products.

RESULTS

DiCentral helped Woco increase their data accuracy and eliminate many of the problems that had previously slowed the work efficiency of their business processes. In the second phase, beginning soon, Woco will implement EDI automation with their other 20 suppliers, adding DiMetrics, DiCentral’s exception management tool. This will create customized alerts to notify the proper employees when a business rule violation is pending, allowing for a swift resolution before the error impacts the supply chain.