Page 40 - Food & Drink Magazine March 2021

ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION
Supplying more than 1000 products across 30 brands to 50 countries, SunRice needed a fast and accurate data exchange. It worked with MessageXchange to upgrade its systems to meet the needs of customers and providers.
Making every grain count
SUNRICE is one of Australia’s leading branded food exporters. It began from a single rice mill in New South Wales in 1950 to become one of the largest rice food companies in the world.
In Australia and New Zealand, it supplies all of the major supermarkets and independent retailers directly and through a number of third-party logistics (3PL) providers. Globally, it exports to 50 countries, managing 1100 products.
The SunRice IT team manages the company’s SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and since 1998, has managed an on-premises middleware solution to translate
its electronic data interchange (EDI) messages. In 2008, it began using MessageXchange technology to move EDI-ready files between SunRice, retailers, and 3PLs.
But after more than 20 years, SunRice’s on-premises middleware was outdated and in need of an upgrade.
Retail customers and 3PLs exchange EDI messages primarily in EDIFACT and XML formats, which are translated to SAP’s iDoc format, or vice versa, using middleware.
It took a significant amount of time and resources to maintain, and it only supported a limited range of data formats, which restricted SunRice’s flexibility and ability to meet customer requirements.
SOLUTION
When looking for a solution, the company had five core needs, a system that would: support varying customer requirements; quickly and accurately map to new file formats; on-board new customers in short periods of time; manage EDI to 3PLs; and reduce costs.
SunRice needed its translation and EDI solution to be agile and robust to support its growth
momentum. MessageXchange replaced SunRice’s legacy software by switching on the translation engine in SunRice’s existing gateway tenancy on the MessageXchange cloud service. It provided a cost-effective solution and significant cost savings compared with the incumbent’s annual licensing fees.
As well as supporting SunRice’s native data format, SAP iDoc, MessageXchange was robust enough to translate varying data formats its customers require, including EDIFACT, XML and more, to SAP iDoc. The software does translation inflight,
picking up the customer’s EDI file format, translating it to an SAP iDoc, and then sending
it through to SunRice.
It all happens in near-real time and any errors that occur during this process are immediately flagged with SunRice, preventing missed orders; something that happened frequently with the previous software.
RESULTS
Its new translation service gave SunRice the ability to plan and control its project roadmap. It can now let customers know exactly when projects are going
live. Projects aren’t months away anymore; turnaround times have been slashed.
What used to take a significant amount of time can now be done in a matter of hours because of the configurable nature of MessageXchange. It’s time that SunRice’s small IT team can now spend on higher- value tasks.
SunRice senior SAP technical analyst Gino Prestia says the new system makes it easier for customers to do business with the company.
“We now have the flexibility to support many different formats for customers, which is a real winner. Projects are being completed faster and more accurately.”
The significant cost savings SunRice is seeing
is allowing it to allocate funds to bringing more 3PLs onto EDI and enhancing
its current EDI exchange with existing customers.
For SunRice, the new system has added agility to its business as a critical time of growth. With greater visibility and accurate real time information, the fear factor of how long a project could take has gone. ✷
40 | Food&Drink business | March 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au