HDW Inc.
HDW Inc. is an employee-owned wholesale distributor of hardware and building material products. The company services over 1,500 retailers across the southern United States. Its corporate headquarters are located in Shreveport, Louisiana with distribution centers in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Improving Visibility
In 2007, HDW sought to streamline its order fulfillment and invoicing processes to provide more visibility to inbound shipments to minimize stock outs and gain supply chain efficiencies.
Their existing manual process, consisting of faxing most orders to their suppliers, did not provide order or shipping confirmation. Without this information, HDW wasn’t able to manage its inventory and receiving effectively. For example, once HDW faxed an order to a vendor, they didn’t know the order was unable to be filled or delivered on time until the delivery date had passed and the shipment had not arrived.
HDW knew that connecting with its vendors via EDI was the answer. It would provide HDW with order confirmations, thus enabling it to reduce inventory carrying costs and have visibility to inventory in transit. The distributor embarked on a vendor enablement campaign using only its limited internal resources.
After a year of pursuing an EDI initiative alone, HDW had established EDI connections with five vendors and was looking for a partner to help them achieve better results.
Streamlining Inventory Management
HDW is a member of Distribution America, the nation’s largest network of independent hardware, hardlines and paint sundries wholesale distributors. Distribution America serves 15,000 retail customers in all 50 states and exporting to 20 countries.
HDW was not alone, several members of the Distribution America network were facing similar challenges and the organization had secured a better way to reach vendors via EDI. In 2008, Distribution America partnered with SPS Commerce to offer its members access to SPS’ vendor enablement services. HDW saw this as the opportunity it needed to rapidly advance its EDI initiative.
"On our own, HDW was able to connect five vendors in a year," stated Wade Wilkerson, Chief Financial Officer at HDW Inc. "With SPS, we connected with more than 100 vendors in six months. SPS' best practices and team made all the difference and allowed us to reach one of our corporate goals."
Today, HDW's inventory management has improved as the company is made aware of order fulfillment issues well in advance of delivery dates. Its buyers know if items are delayed in time to find sourcing alternatives if possible.
"Teaming with our vendors to do EDI was a natural evolution of our business, however, going it alone was ineffective," continued Wilkerson. "With SPS Commerce, we leveraged a company with proven best practices and a team of supply chain and EDI experts who worked alongside our vendors throughout the process. Their results were amazing, leading us to launch our next vendor enablement initiative with SPS to add another 100 vendors to our EDI initiative."
About SPS Commerce
SPS Commerce is a leading provider of on-demand supply chain management solutions, providing integration, collaboration, connectivity, visibility and data analytics to thousands of customers worldwide. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a Software-as-a-Service model to improve the way suppliers, retailers, distributors and other customers manage and fulfill orders. Our SPSCommerce.net platform features pre-built integrations used by current and new customers alike, spanning 2,700 order management models across 1,300 retailers, grocers and distributors, as well as integrations to over 100 accounting, warehouse management, enterprise resource planning, and packing and shipping applications. More than 35,000 customers across more than 40 countries have used SPSCommerce.net, making it one of the largest trading partner integration centers. SPS Commerce has 38 consecutive quarters of increased revenues and is headquartered in Minneapolis.
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