EDI Implementation – The First Pilot Project
EDI Implementation will be released successfully after the first pilot project is completed. After you have developed EDI system, integrated it into your company internal business operations, mapped Electronic Data Interchange documents, set-up and tested the software and hardware you should move further to test everything “live”. The testing mode can be applied with few trading partners agreed to help you and check everything up. This phase of EDI Implementation is critical as it helps to eliminate the mistakes and drawbacks as well as see the first positive results such as benefit and process optimization. Also, piloting EDI Implementation you can test EDI relationships with your trading partners before going to production.
How to choose a trading partners for a pilot project? First of all, it should be an organization with profound EDI experience and special staff at EDI department It is recommended that you start with few Electronic Data Interchange transactions. They can be simple but frequently used documents – purchase order and invoice. During the testing period paper documents can be sent until the pilot project shows positive results.
The main goal of any EDI Implementation pilot project is to understand if the system works properly and can be controlled, if expected benefits were received, if users can easily take part in the process and control it. The analysis should be made in order to see the existing drawbacks and mistakes that must be eliminated.