Company Background
Founded in 1948, Bestar became a public company in 1986. In 1996 Bestar became ISO 9001 certified, the first North American ready to assemble furniture manufacturer to do so. In 2004, Bestar Inc., of Lac Megantic, Quebec, under went a major corporate restructuring after a post 2000 downturn which saw the company live some difficult times. A new management team and a new manufacturing application meant Bestar was poised to expand market share and grow. Bestar's Canadian-based operations include design, manufacturing, and marketing of its products through Canadian and US national department stores, mass merchants, specialty retail stores, catalogs, and various office dealer channels.

Business Issue
In 2004, Bestar Inc. of Lac Megantic, Quebec realized that to remain competitive as a supplier in the retail industry, they would need to highly automate their operations and adopt more sophisticated electronic data interchange (EDI) capabilities. Their existing EDI system was showing its age and lack of flexibility. As Canada's leading manufacturer of ready to assemble furniture, Bestar had acquired an impressive client list that included Costco, Staples, Office Max and WalMart-all EDI capable and all demanding the same of Bestar.

In response, Bestar decided to implement a system that would meet the EDI demands of its retail clients and, in the process, move goods to the final destination-the consumers' hands-faster. The result was expected to follow the design intent of Quick Response programs: the sale of a consumer product generates an immediate reorder and the subsequent actions to fill that reorder. Stock turnover is increased, inventory is reduced, administrative labor is reduced, but the number of transactions are increased.

The major challenge facing Bestar was how to implement an automated process that could comply with various national retailers' EDI implementation guidelines, but still maintain the same controls inherent within their accounting system - Visual Manufacturing.

Bestar did not want to accept a specific solution from any particular retailer. They needed an off-the-shelf solution that would be flexible in growth, the number of EDI documents being exchanged, the number of online trading partners, and the opportunity for continued integration with their existing accounting and operational systems.

Solution
Virtual Logistics provided the answer by creating a truly integrated and off-the-shelf solution made up of Softshare ECS and Softshare Delta Enterprise. Softshare ECS and Softshare Delta Enterprise streamlined EDI document reception, tracking, and translation, ensuring a smooth electronic commerce audit trail with a minimum of effort - a true black box setup. After all EDI order information was validated, integration with Visual Manufacturing was accomplished using the Visual VMDI interface. This eliminated the need for any order clean-up within the accounting system as only validated orders entered Visual Manufacturing.

Invoices and ASNs as well as shipment status transactions are exported from Visual and are processed in near real time by ECS and Delta. Outbound transactions are communicated directly to trading partners using a variety of commucnaitions methods.

Benefits
From purchase orders to invoices to advance ship notices, Bestar now has a system in place that not only keeps their national retail customers happy, but also provides operational efficiency by reducing labor and virtually eliminating errors.