Migrating to Clean Data

The faster new product is stocked on retailers' shelves, the faster it generates revenue. Until recently, this simple process took days, and sometimes weeks, for personal care manufacturer Kimberly-Clark of Irving, Texas, due to the lack of communication with its retail partners. Thanks to data synchronization and UCCnet procedures, new products now integrate into retailers' ordering, receiving and automatic replenishment systems overnight, providing an invaluable speed to market advantage, according to Larry Roth, senior consultant of logistics at Kimberly-Clark Corp.

The much-needed boost in speed and accuracy is largely attributed to a data synchronization system the company installed earlier this year from Sterling Commerce, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio. The product, called Gentran Integration Suite, processes and communicates outbound and inbound product information with Transora, a data synchronization service provider based in Chicago, Illinois. Transora registers information with the UCCnet Global Registry and forwards it to Kimberly-Clark's UCCnet-compliant retail partners.

Roth credits UCCnet as much as the data synchronization software itself for the company's improved accuracy and speed-to-market.

"When we release a new product for shipment, [our partners] often don't have it fully integrated into their systems yet," Roth explains. "We never had a way of knowing whether they had actually plugged the item into their system or not."

Kimberly-Clark products are now moved to retail store shelves much more quickly. Data synchronization, in combination with UCCnet, provides a speed to market that cannot be obtained in any other way, says Roth.

The First Step

Industry experts consider data synchronization a first important step--and the harbinger of success--for other initiatives such as RFID, collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) and vendor-managed inventory (VMI).

"We've had CPFR and VMI in place before, but it's a struggle with each one of those because our system and their system weren't synchronized in each case," says Roth. "None of those tools do a very good job in making the data accurate because customers are accepting automated updates and spending time and money synchronizing their own systems when they get that data. It's important that all of those initiatives depend on accurate product information -- the fact that a new code will be available to ship on a particular date or this code is replacing that code. And timing of that is important. That's dependent on getting basic information right."

The Cost of Doing Business

According to a recent study from AMR Research, Inc. data synchronization is the only way for consumer goods companies and their partners to achieve the goal of a consumer-connected supply network. Data synchronization is the foundation of a two-way flow of product, promotion and sales data and the enabler for true collaboration and emerging technologies like RFID.

The study, entitled "Data Synchronization Has Simply Become a Cost of Doing Business," also points out that companies that fail to develop a platform to support data synchronization will squander a collective $2.1 billion on B2B initiatives.

A 2002 study conducted by A.T. Kearney Inc. for the Trading Partner Alliance backs up these claims. Among its findings were the following:

30 percent of item data in catalogs used by retailers and manufacturers for replenishment of stock is in error. Each of those errors costs $60 to $80 to address.

Companies invest an average of 25 minutes per SKU per year manually cleansing out-of-synch item information.

60 percent of all invoices generated have errors. Each invoice error costs $40 to $400 to reconcile.

Snack Success

For Herr Foods Inc., a Nottingham, Pennsylvania-based snack foods manufacturer, the reason for adopting data synchronization has nothing to do with an internal desire to increase accuracy. In fact, a major retailer insisted the company adopt a data synch system in order to improve communication and accuracy.

"It was more than a request," says Jim Abshire, manager of operations and system development at Herr. "They gave us implementation dates and expected us to meet them."

Herr's challenge involved finding a method for manufacturer and retail systems to agree on price. After considering its options, the company chose to implement syncLink software from viaLink Co. of Dallas, Texas.

Here's how it works: Herr Foods employees enter a new negotiated price for an item into the company's internal system. Overnight, the change is added to a batch sent from viaLink. The retailer performs the same process. If the prices match, the issue is resolved. If there is a discrepancy, both companies are notified of the difference.

"There was no more haggling about what their system might say for price, versus what our invoices said," says Abshire.

The Final Experiment

Herr is now experimenting with UCCnet, which helps cleanse data and eliminate duplicate UPC codes. With the help of viaLink, the company currently is in the process of registering its data with the global registry and feeding the data to retailers that desire to receive it through UCCnet. Herr does not plan to force UCCnet upon its retailers, but as the industry moves closer to wide-spread adoption of UCCnet, Abshire expects more of Herr Foods' partners to request the company use it, which Abshire says the company is more than prepared to do.