Riedel achieves efficiency with 95% of transactions via EDI

Riedel is a leading producer of fruit juices and dominates the Dutch market for fruity drinks with well-known brands such as Appelsientje, CoolBest, and DubbelFrisss. Thanks to integrated EDI from Descartes, the company sees the benefits of time savings and higher efficiency in daily order processing.

"In the message traffic to and from our customers and distributors, there is little manual work. Currently, 95% of transactions are processed via EDI. This is a major efficiency gain for order processing."

Tom Balke, IT Manager

Riedel aimed to achieve efficiency gains by automating the message flow with customers and logistics partners using EDI for a faster and error-free process. By automating and streamlining the message flow with customers and logistics partners, Riedel aimed for smoother order processing and a lower workload for the Customer Service department. As a result, employees could expect significant time savings due to less manual work and a lower error margin. Almost all order-to-cash traffic should be able to run via integrated EDI to achieve this goal. Riedel chose Descartes' EDI solution.

Integrated EDI is used by Riedel for the entire order-to-cash (OTC) process and ensures the automatic exchange of orders (ORDER), digital packing slips (DESADV), invoices (INVOIC), and inventory messages at the external warehouse. The information is automatically processed in the ERP. This means that all orders are already in the ERP when the Customer Service employees start their workday. Manual entry of orders is no longer necessary.

"It just saves a lot of manual work. So working with EDI is much more efficient and much less error-prone," explains Ramon Suijker, Functional Application Manager.

The entire OTC message flow has been mapped out: customer messages, Riedel messages that automatically end up in the ERP system, distributor messages, the flow to and from 2 external warehouses, up to and including the inventory reporting with logistics partners, ensuring that stocks are always correct in the ERP.

"In the message traffic with our customers and distributors, there is little manual work. Currently, 95% of transactions are processed via EDI," says Tom Balke, IT Manager. Only smaller companies (mainly from the foodservice sector) that, for example, do not yet have an ERP system or an EDI connection, still order via email. Through a partner's web portal, their orders still come in via EDI at Riedel.

The collaboration with Descartes is going well. Tom Balke says:

"We really have a partnership with Descartes as a supplier. There is constructive consultation with a view to a long-term relationship. The cooperation is also very smooth on the operational side. We do not experience any problems when connecting new customers or additional projects." Regarding the solution itself, he adds, "I can't remember having had a malfunction in the past year. Additionally, the traceability or activity monitor works very well. You can easily find out whether a message has been sent or received correctly."

The automatic processing in the ERP system saves time for Customer Service employees. Since the solution works 24/7, processing is not dependent on office hours.

Since no manual entry is needed, the error margin is minimized. This provides peace of mind and better customer satisfaction.

The EDI solution has very good uptime and offers real-time insights, allowing Riedel to respond quickly to customer inquiries.

The Descartes team thinks along with Riedel and responds quickly to requests. The cooperation is aimed at a long-term partnership.

Riedel is a leading company in the production of fruit juices, where taste, quality, and sustainability are central. With brands like Appelsientje, CoolBest, and DubbelFrisss, Riedel dominates the Dutch market for fruity drinks. Additionally, Riedel is also a production partner and supplier of various private labels.