Articles
Healthy synchronisation (October 2003)
Sanitarium Health Food Company recently went live on EANnet® after solving data synchronisation issues with the aid of EAN Professional Services' "EANnet Project Facilitation Programme".
The large grocery manufacturer faced substantial challenges integrating internal data from three databases and multiple systems into EANnet.
Under the Project Facilitation Programme, the Professional Services team provided Sanitarium with project management, direction and advice throughout the EANnet implementation over a 12-week period.
The EAN Professional Services team conducted a series of project meetings, provided training, gave advice on catalogue structures, defined data sources, and liased with both third party integration specialists and leading retail customers. Two key additional focuses of the project were to clarify ownership of inputs across departments, and to maintain a focus on revising processes to deliver sustainability.
The result is a streamlined system that reduces errors made during the introduction of new products, product changes and deletions, while ensuring customer systems are kept in alignment with those at Sanitarium.
Robert Patterson, National Trade Marketing Manager at Sanitarium, said that "the EANnet Project Facilitation Programme really helped keep us on track, and ensured we all worked to a structured timetable and process of EANnet implementation".
Reducing error rates and the removal of duplication of effort in providing this master data will provide Sanitarium with substantial savings including a reduction in disruption to supply.
