Flowgear, the agile cloud integration platform, enables Anchor Yeast to implement a system to support a major retailer’s new EDI-based order process.

What do you do if you supply a major retail chain and the chain changes a key business process? That was the situation that Anchor Yeast, part of the international Lallemand group, found when one of its top customers and major African retailer, Pick n Pay, decided to implement a new EDI order process. Anchor Yeast found the solution in the Flowgear integration platform-as-a-service.

Anchor Yeast is a leading manufacturer of yeast, enzyme and speciality ingredients in Southern Africa, serving the needs of the baking and beverage industries, as well as small-scale and home baking and brewing, and supplies major retail chains throughout the region. In 2013, the Pick n Pay retail organization sent its suppliers the specifications for an electronic order process it would be implementing; suppliers would be required to accept EDI-based purchase orders.

Flowgear was selected to automate the process because “it had already done integrations with Pick n Pay and could cater for our diverse projects,” commented Margareta Theron, IT Manager at Anchor Yeast.

The Anchor yeast call centre is the unit responsible for processing purchase orders and creating sales orders on customers. According to Marlize Meyer, call centre manager, the integration platform imports EDI in XML format, passes that to the SYSPRO ERP system which generates sales orders, then automatically sends text messages to stores informing them of the expected order delivery.

Before implementing Flowgear, customer communication was manual, but with Flowgear the process is much easier, according to Meyer. Using Flowgear, Anchor staff can easily link orders on the ERP system with a number, which makes it easier to determine ship dates. Errors have been minimized, and through integrating EDI orders with the ERP system, they can more easily address issues of price discrepancies that may occur with the complex pricing agreements that retailers usually have.

Since implementing the Pick n Pay integration process, Anchor Yeast have used Flowgear to handle electronic orders from Shoprite, ranked the number one retailer in Africa and the Middle East. Next on the list of retailers to support with electronic orders is the retailer Spar and wholesaler Shield.