What EDI is, for a shop
EDI is a purchase order, an acknowledgment, a shipping notice and an invoice written in a fixed format, ANSI X12 in North America, so the customer's computer can read them without a person. A Tier 1 or an OEM requires it from its suppliers, and the requirement comes with deadlines and chargebacks. For a job shop with two or three such customers, EDI has usually meant a Web-EDI inbox that someone keys from and keys back into.
The sets you will meet
- 850: a purchase order. Lines with the customer's part number, quantity, unit price, due date, ship-to plant and dock.
- 860: a change to an 850: a quantity, a date, a cancelled line.
- 830: a planning schedule, usually weekly. The forecast for the coming weeks, some firm and some planning only.
- 862: a shipping schedule, usually daily. The firm releases against a blanket, each carrying the last cum the customer has received and the last packing slip they saw.
- 855: your acknowledgment of an 850, line by line: accepted, accepted with changes, rejected.
- 856: the advance ship notice, the ASN. What is on the truck, by packing slip number, with the shipped quantity and the new cum per line, sent before the truck arrives.
- 810: your invoice.
- 820: the customer's remittance advice when they pay.
- 824: an application advice. The customer's system rejected something, often an ASN with a dock code written 7 instead of 07.
- 997: a functional acknowledgment, "received and readable", that both sides send for every set they receive.
The cum
The cum, the cumulative quantity shipped, is the number most small-shop EDI goes wrong on. On a blanket order the customer does not reorder; they release against it, and every release tells you how much they have received in total. Your ERP's shipped total should match. When it does not, someone shipped something that was never recorded or recorded something that never shipped, and the next release is wrong in whichever direction. STRYKE compares the release's cum and last packing slip to what your ERP has shipped before entering the release, and holds the release when they disagree, so a catch-up shipment is a decision a person makes, not a surprise on Monday.
Timing
The 997 is due fast. Some OEM specifications want it within five minutes of receipt, and a late one reads as not received. STRYKE queues the 997 the moment a transaction arrives. The 855 goes when the Order posts in your ERP. The 856 goes when the Packing list closes, with the packing slip number as the shipment identifier and the shipped and cum quantities per line; most customers want it before the truck arrives, and some within thirty minutes of it leaving. The 810 goes when the Invoice posts, or not at all for a customer that pays off the ASN.
The point of sending each reply when the ERP says the event happened is that nobody has to remember. A missed ASN is the chargeback small shops see most, and it is missed because the truck left at 4:40 and the person who sends the ASN had gone home.
Chargebacks
The usual ones: a late or missing 856, an 856 whose quantities do not match the packing slip, a label whose serial does not match the ASN, an 855 that never came. The amounts vary by customer; $250 for a missing ASN is a figure stampers quote. The cure is the same for all of them: send the reply from the event in the ERP, and keep the raw interchange with its control numbers for the day the customer disputes it.
No translator
A translator is software that turns X12 into something your ERP can import, and back. Small shops rent one, or do without and key from a Web-EDI portal. STRYKE reads and writes X12 itself: any delimiters, any envelope, firm and planning quantities split by their code, the raw interchange stored next to the Order. If your customer requires a VAN, STRYKE connects to the mailbox you already have; if they send through a Web-EDI portal or an emailed file, it reads from there. Your ERP needs no EDI module: the release is entered through the API, the import file or the Order screen, the same three doors as every other document. EDI for job shops has the detail, and order acknowledgments covers the 855 beside the emailed reply.
The standard itself is kept by X12, and your customer's implementation guide says which segments they use and when they want each reply. Send us that guide and STRYKE reads to it.