Infor streamlines EDI for M3

Infor has announced its integration solution between Infor M3 and the Infor EDI Managed Service. It is built using Infor ION leveraging the Infor middleware to simplify the process for companies to implement EDI.

Infor EDI managed service was launched in 2015. While it allowed companies using M3 to develop EDI, it meant that much of the up front integration was done manually. This was time consuming and costly.

Andrew Dalziel, senior director, industry and solution strategy, Infor explains saying: “The EDI solution has been around for some time but what we are adding is standard M3 ION integration so that M3 customers can easily plug into the EDI solution and take advantage of the Infor EDI Managed Services. This simplifies and reduces the cost of EDI for M3 customers and enables us to create a packaged EDI solution for our M3 customers.”

Benefits made easy

This solution further simplifies the set up of EDI for companies that need to streamline processes with clients. It allows Infor M3 customers to quickly set up interfaces to trading platforms and accelerate implementation. EDI Managed service assists this with more than 1,000 pre-built partner links to some of the largest companies in retail, automotive, manufacturing, and aerospace & defense.

Not only does this make the EDI solution straightforward to set up, it also maintains the connections between companies. As EDI formats change and evolve the EDI managed service updates the required formats and integrations. The ION integration ensures that Infor M3 users no longer have rejected EDI messages because of format changes. This eliminates unnecessary delays in a process that needs to work smoothly to benefit the business.

Building towards faster leaner operations

Companies in fashion, food & beverage, distribution and manufacturing seek to exchange order, delivery and invoicing information to automate the supply chain. EDI is a tried and trusted method for doing this. It allows companies to raise orders from within their ERP solution. Then transmit the appropriate data securely to the supplier with no delays.

Dalziel commented: “Organizations need to invest in an EDI solution that packages and simplifies the challenge of processing, maintaining and utilizing incoming data from an evolving customer base. In the past, this challenge would require a company to develop a home-grown EDI solution, which can be costly to build, expensive to implement and difficult to manage throughout release updates. By integrating this functionality into the core of Infor M3, our customers benefit from a simplistic approach for managing data transfers.

“Being able to accurately predict and meet demand is critical in every industry, but this especially rings true in fashion, food and beverage, some of the most highly competitive and consumer driven industries, where a single social media post can spur demand volatility.”

Once implemented M3 users are able to track inbound and outbound EDI messages, responding to them quickly. The messages are integrated into process orientated workflows using Infor Xi technology. This grants access to EDI messages for the endpoint users who need the information quickly. This opens up access to EDI to the wider business rather than a single point within the organisation. That single point often acts as a bottleneck to information flows. M3 role-based homepages help deliver EDI messages straight to an individuals desktop without needing a gatekeeper to disseminate messages.

Conclusion

This technology has always existed for customers to build their own interfaces using Infor ION to the EDI platform. With this solution Infor has sensibly cut down the implementation time for customers in deploying EDI.

Existing M3 customers looking to or who already deployed EDI solutions should certainly consider this solution. It will help those that have found EDI a headache to manage and maintain. When EDI works well it significantly streamlines the supply chain. However it is often complex to set up and time consuming to fix when it breaks. The new Infor solution seems to alleviate that and reduce the risk of EDI failing for the business.