Milwaukee Electric Tool works with a wide range of customers — from big-box retail chains to independent distributors — and knows that not everyone can afford to make substantial investments in electronic data interchange (EDI). "It would be cost-prohibitive for a lot of our regional distributors to make the investment required to do EDI with each of their manufacturers," said Rick Showers, director at Milwaukee Electric Tool.
Making it easier and more cost-effective for distributors to do business electronically is precisely why Milwaukee joined Prophet 21 Trading Partner Connect, an Internet trading network that streamlines the commerce process between distributors, manufacturers/suppliers, and end-users. Through Trading Partner Connect, distributors can access millions of items, enabling them to compete on a larger scale and improve customer service, while benefiting from eliminated EDI VAN charges.
Trading Partner Connect will reduce the chance for errors and the need for human interaction — driving down costs on all sides of each transaction. Traditional ways of doing business are labor-intensive and expensive. Customers write up an order and fax it, or pick up the phone and talk to a call center rep. Trading Partner Connect will allow one computer system to talk to another, making the process fast, easy and inexpensive.
One company looking forward to working with Milwaukee via Trading Partner Connect is Manufacturers Sales Co., a Texarkana, AR-based master distributor that buys hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tools and accessories from Milwaukee each year.
Larry May, purchasing manager at Manufacturers Sales, estimates that working with Milwaukee via Trading Partner Connect will improve lead times by two or three days. He also believes it will decrease the amount of time he spends purchasing items from Milwaukee by half — allowing him to focus on better managing inventory.
For more information, visit http://www.p21.com/.
