General Hearing Instruments: Meets Fortune 500 Retail Demands With DiCentral

THE CHALLENGE

For years, hearing aids were only available through prescription and required highly trained
audiologists to perform complex tuning of the rice-sized speakers used in the devices. Over time, as patients became more educated on hearing aid solutions, consumers began to weigh the cost-to-benefit of prescription devices. General Hearing recognized this trend early in 2008 and began offering an affordable, over-the-counter option tuned for average hearing loss.

The addition of direct-to-consumer hearing products required an equally progressive approach to the supply chain and order fulfillment processes. Prior to partnering with DiCentral, General Hearing employed a team of as many as 10 people to manually log into  several disparate retailer websites to process the hundreds of orders it received each day. This required more time, more manpower, and an increased risk of human error in the ordering process. The need for an EDI solution was made urgent when the company expanded to supplying multiple Fortune 500 retailers.

“Hearing loss patients now have the option to order an affordable hearing aid from an online retailer. We then receive the order through DiCentral before shipping it to their doorstep,” said Robert Artigues, vice president of operations at General Hearing. “Now they’re able to buy it, try it, and return it directly to the brick and mortar location, if necessary.”

Additional supply chain implications included the stringent compliance requirements of HIPAA and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The retail hearing aids are Class 1 medical devices and the prescription hearing aids are Class 2 medical devices – each requiring a thorough quality assurance program and specific manufacturing requirements. The difference in order volume for retail versus prescription products justified the investment in a scalable EDI solution.

SCALABLE SOLUTIONS

General Hearing required a singular EDI platform to receive the exponentially increasing order volume from retailers. DiCentral provided a cost-effective, flexible, cloud-based EDI solution that could scale with the company’s growing need to integrate with retail giants. Working together, DiCentral and General Hearing developed a customized EDI system that functions as a centralized hub, consolidating all orders into one location while simultaneously integrating with the company’s existing proprietary ERP.

“We used to have to log onto the individual websites for each customer,” Artigues recalled. “When we began working with the biggest name in retail, we knew we needed a centralized hub where all the orders were consolidated into one location. DiCentral is exactly what we needed, providing flexibility and relieving stress in the order entry process.”

While most EDI providers outsource ERP integration to third party vendors, often leading to delayed projects, increased costs, and lost revenue, DiCentral uses proprietary ERP adapters that integrate with over 100 ERP, WMS, and accounting systems. General Hearing uses the DiCentral EDI platform to process orders across its distribution chain from a single dashboard while DiCentral’s ERP integration eliminates the labor costs and errors due to manual data entry.

THE RESULTS

By deploying the DiCentral EDI solution, General Hearing was able to leverage technology and supply chain efficiency to improve operations and increase order output, allowing the company to reinvest resources that were historically expended on manual order process into product development and bring their innovative hearing aids to a much larger customer base. Today, General Hearing can offer listening aids to those who may not have been able to afford them previously.

“Customers can evaluate the cost-to-benefit ratio of hearing aids without such a significant investment,” said Artigues. “And if they have any problems, we’re just a phone call away. DiCentral helps make all that possible.”