Next Generation Strategies For EDI & DSD

By RedPrairie

Faced with cautious consumers and rising operating costs, retailers and consumer product vendors are turning back to their supply chain to find efficiencies. Identifying one of the top levers for controlling costs, executives are focusing on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to streamline Direct Store Delivery (DSD) procedures at their stores.

EDI, a technology-based method for the exchange of data between trading partners, has been employed in the retail space for more than 20 years. It emerged as a way to replace backroom paper processes that made it difficult to maintain accurate item and price information for the thousands of items received at the retailers' back doors. More recently, retailers have struggled to accommodate increased delivery frequencies and increased SKU counts offered by DSD vendors. Automating the DSD delivery process is helping to reduce congestion at the back door and reduce check-in times.