Manufacturer of mechanical sealing equipment selects GXS to automate forecast and logistics processes
Gaithersburg, MD — February 15, 2005 — John Crane, a manufacturer of mechanical sealing products, said today that it has selected GXS to provide a full-service outsourcing and supplier portal program.
The program is expected to allow John Crane to communicate and manage forecasts and shipments with its suppliers.
The OLV solution, an online supplier portal and an integrated part of the GXS Trading Grid(SM), will provide John Crane's internal buyers and planners, as well as its external suppliers, with online forecasts, acknowledgements and electronic shipment notice creation and visibility.
The solution will also bring together John Crane's internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with its electronic data interchange (EDI) and non-EDI compliant suppliers. The arrangement will enable John Crane and its suppliers to achieve performance gains, especially in personnel productivity and planning accuracy.
To set up and train partners on the solution, John Crane said it will also utilize GXS' Community Link, a trading partner enabling solution that includes community outreach, education and testing.
"Because of the dynamic nature of John Crane's business and our long history with GXS, the OLV solution made sense for us," said Guy Hagen, purchasing manager for John Crane. He explained that John Crane wanted an automated solution for communicating information such as forecasts and changes with its small to medium size suppliers. At the same time, the manufacturer needed to provide buyers and planners with detailed visibility across all suppliers, regardless of EDI or Web-based formats.
"OLV easily provides that cost-effective connectivity and centralized source of information and control that simply cannot be achieved through traditional means such as the manual exchange of emails, faxes and phone calls," he said.
The OLV service will also enable John Crane to meet the electronic document exchange requirements of its key automotive OEM customers.
"The GXS Trading Grid and solutions such as OLV were designed specifically for companies like John Crane and its supplier community, who need to automate and manage business processes extending outside the four walls of the enterprise," said Michael Del Sarto, director of collaborative solutions at GXS.
