OEC Group Automates Logistics With iWay
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
- Asia
- Europe
Country
- Canada
Product
- iWay Service Manager
- Professional Services
Tech Stack
- EDI
- XML
- OCR
- Microsoft .Net
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries
Applicable Industries
- Retail
- Automotive
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Procurement
Use Cases
- Supply Chain Visibility
- Track & Trace of Assets
- Fleet Management
Services
- System Integration
- Software Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
OEC Group is a global leader in the logistics and supply-chain industry. The Montreal, Canada-based company provides integrated logistics services and solutions to manufacturers, retailers, and other types of companies. Its global network is known for providing logistics intelligence and performance-driven, cost-effective freight forwarding strategies that help its clients respond quickly to market demands. With a specialization in ocean and air shipments throughout Asia and Europe, OEC Group’s worldwide infrastructure improves freight visibility and accuracy for many types of transactions. From aerospace to healthcare, retail to automotive manufacturing, OEC Group’s clients gain a more competitive and streamlined supply chain thanks to Information Builders’ iWay integration technology.
The Challenge
OEC Group, a global leader in the logistics and supply-chain industry, needed to expand its basic EDI integration infrastructure to include many types of electronic messages and formats including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, e-mail, Fax, XML, JSON, Excel, and other structured and unstructured data formats, as well as paper documents of all types. Prior to implementing iWay, developers at OEC Group hard-coded individual interfaces for each customer and supplier. This was laborious and expensive to develop new integrations. The company also needed to comply with the Canadian e-manifest program, which requires all carriers, freight forwarders, and importers to send advance commercial information about their shipments electronically to the Canada Border Services Agency. The data has to be processed before a shipment is ever loaded onto boats or planes, meaning the documents must be present at the port of departure before the government will allow goods to be loaded.
The Solution
OEC Group implemented iWay, a general-purpose service bus that can create reusable interfaces that accommodate EDI, web services, document management, ERP integration, and workflow automation. iWay became the backbone of OEC Group’s document management strategy. It uses OCR technology to process documents, as well as add metadata that makes these documents more relevant and valuable. iWay also automates more than 40 different workflows for OEC Group, dramatically reducing manual effort. Users previously had to wait for e-mail verifications before processing freight forwarding jobs. Using iWay, OEC Group now processes e-mails, identifies them, classifies them, and adds additional scanned documents if a second level of identification is required. iWay also detects errors, events, and milestones, and then alerts users of specific actions as part of a structured workflow.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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