The Challenge

Retailer-Mandated EDI with Tight Timeline

When one of its largest customers, Pick n Pay, required all suppliers to transition to an EDI-based purchase order process, Anchor Yeast needed to act quickly. The change meant the company had to reliably accept EDI orders, translate them into sales orders inside SYSPRO, and notify stores about delivery dates.

Previously, much of this work was handled manually by the call center, including order processing and customer updates, creating delays and errors. The company also had to contend with complex pricing agreements that made manual reconciliations even more difficult.

Why Flowgear was chosen

“Flowgear had already done integrations with Pick n Pay and could cater for our diverse projects,” commented Margareta Theron, IT Manager at Anchor Yeast.

SYSPRO Automation

Inbound EDI orders create SYSPRO sales orders, trigger delivery notices, and the call center team has full visibility

The Solution

EDI-to-ERP Order Automation

Flowgear’s integration platform was used to automate every step of the order process. Inbound EDI orders in XML format are automatically imported and passed to the SYSPRO ERP system, which generates sales orders. Stores immediately receive text messages with the expected delivery information.

The call center team now has the ability to link EDI orders to ERP order numbers, making ship dates easier to track. Errors dropped sharply once manual re-entry was eliminated, and complex pricing discrepancies could be addressed directly inside the system rather than after the fact.

The Results

Faster Processing and Fewer Errors

With the new process in place, Anchor Yeast achieved significant operational improvements:

• Customer communication moved from manual updates to automated notifications.
• Errors dropped thanks to direct EDI-to-ERP integration.
• Price discrepancies associated with retail contracts are easier to address.
• Ship dates can be identified more quickly by linking EDI orders to ERP records.

Faster, cleaner orders

Automated notifications replaced manual updates, and each team has access to a live, single source of truth.

Expanding retail connections

With Pick n Pay’s initial use case sorted for Anchor Yeast, they plan to extend the same digital order flow across their other partners.

The Future

Looking Ahead

After successfully handling Pick n Pay’s requirements, Anchor Yeast turned to Shoprite, the continent’s largest retailer, and integrated their electronic orders as well. The company now plans to extend the process to Spar and wholesaler Shield, ensuring that its digital order management can support each new retail partner.

Flowgear, the agile cloud integration platform, enables Anchor Yeast to implement a system to support a major retailer’s new EDI-based order process.
What do you do if you supply a major retail chain and the chain changes a key business process? That was the situation that Anchor Yeast, part of the international Lallemand group, found when one of its top customers and major African retailer, Pick n Pay, decided to implement a new EDI order process. Anchor Yeast found the solution in the Flowgear integration platform-as-a-service.
Anchor Yeast is a leading manufacturer of yeast, enzyme and speciality ingredients in Southern Africa, serving the needs of the baking and beverage industries, as well as small-scale and home baking and brewing, and supplies major retail chains throughout the region. In 2013, the Pick n Pay retail organization sent its suppliers the specifications for an electronic order process it would be implementing; suppliers would be required to accept EDI-based purchase orders.
Flowgear was selected to automate the process because “it had already done integrations with Pick n Pay and could cater for our diverse projects,” commented Margareta Theron, IT Manager at Anchor Yeast.
The Anchor yeast call centre is the unit responsible for processing purchase orders and creating sales orders on customers. According to Marlize Meyer, call centre manager, the integration platform imports EDI in XML format, passes that to the SYSPRO ERP system which generates sales orders, then automatically sends text messages to stores informing them of the expected order delivery.
Before implementing Flowgear, customer communication was manual, but with Flowgear the process is much easier, according to Meyer. Using Flowgear, Anchor staff can easily link orders on the ERP system with a number, which makes it easier to determine ship dates. Errors have been minimized, and through integrating EDI orders with the ERP system, they can more easily address issues of price discrepancies that may occur with the complex pricing agreements that retailers usually have.
Since implementing the Pick n Pay integration process, Anchor Yeast have used Flowgear to handle electronic orders from Shoprite, ranked the number one retailer in Africa and the Middle East. Next on the list of retailers to support with electronic orders is the retailer Spar and wholesaler Shield.