Acme Foundry Implements iR*EDI
for Caterpillar in Record Time

Background Information

Coffeyville, Kansas has been home to one of the leading foundries in the country. In the beginning Acme Foundry made and repaired parts for brick and tile manufacturers. In the last decade, they have experienced significant increases in production requiring multiple expansions of facilities, purchase of new equipment and hiring of additional employees.In addition to their previous product lines, Acme now produces castings for diesel engines, hydraulic valves, petroleum production valves, gear boxes, lawn mower parts and energy machinery. These new products and new customers have created the need for more employees (now 300+) and new business process requirements including EDI processing. (Acme Foundry Web Site: http://www.acmefoundry.net/)

Productivity Challenges

Acme Foundry needed a way to cut down on all the manual processing that was required to satisfy one of their largest customers.

Caterpillar, Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, is a large customer of Acme Foundry.The processing of their data consisted of all manual processes completed by many different departments inside of Acme. The data was downloaded from the Caterpillar web site by a person in customer service, and hand-keyed into BLIS-400 (their ERP system provided by B&L Information Systems).When products were shipped, a member of the shipping group scanned and emailed packing lists and Bills of Lading to various people at Caterpillar to make them aware of the arriving goods. Billing was processed through the accounting department and then when the invoice was printed, someone in the IT department would manually key the information for the invoice into a Web Form Caterpillar’s web site.

The Radley Solution

An electronic data interchange solution that integrates to their B&L Information Systems solution

Acting on the recommendation from B&L Information Systems, Acme Foundry decided to go with Radley Corporation’s iR*EDI eCommerce Solution. They had looked at other EDI software packages, but went with Radley because of their proven track record with BLIS-400 integration and iR*EDI’s automation capabilities.

Productivity Improvements

Better processing time and business process flow.

The installation and implementation of Acme Foundry’s EDI solution was completed in record time. They were able to get a new connection to Caterpillar using a secure FTP protocol, download test data for material releases and purchase orders, and send back Advance Ship Notices and Invoices automatically when they were created inside of BLIS-400.

iR*EDI allows for the manual process of printing customer demand off of a web site and then entering the demand into their ERP system to be eliminated. By using the Radley File Handler, when ASN and Invoice data is created in BLIS, it is automatically picked up by iR*EDI, validated against Caterpillar’s implementation guidelines, and sent off to the customer.

The iR*EDI automation and integration have made a big difference in the processing time and business process flow at Acme Foundry. They look forward to bringing other customers on board with EDI in the future.