Founded in 1973, Parts Authority is a leading national distributer of automotive parts and equipment in the U.S. The company sells and supplies over 800,000 unique parts to repair shops, auto parts stores, and fleets across the country.
Such an intricate supply chain process demands a sophisticated integration strategy to connect inbound and outbound systems for streamlined communication with customers. Parts Authority needed a simple, repeatable, and scalable EDI solution to share invoice data with customers and fulfill purchase orders on time.
“We were looking for a slam dunk product to help us connect our backend systems and perform integrations that we didn’t have the ability to do, and CData Arc helped us a lot in that way,” said Steve Wojtowicz, Integrations Project Manager at Parts Authority.
“We were looking for a slam dunk product to help us connect our backend systems and perform integrations that we didn’t have the ability to do, and CData Arc helped us a lot in that way.”
- Steve Wojtowicz, Parts Authority Integrations Project Manager
The Challenge: Custom EDI Integrations Don’t Scale
Parts Authority sends and receives EDI 850 purchase orders and 810 invoices to customers as part of their supply chain process. Before turning to CData Arc, Parts Authority had to manually build custom EDI integrations to communicate with customers. But the process wasn’t scalable.
Parts Authority generates text files, CSV, or PDF documents according to their customers’ unique needs. Most of these processes were similar, but many customers required customization in some aspects. Each time, Steve and his colleague Tyson McPherson were forced to bring in a team of developers to design and build integrations for the specific use case. Invoicing and purchase order fulfillment became a drain on time and resources, so they turned to CData Arc.
“Previously, we would get a team of developers, design an application, and build it to fix the problem or provide the solution. With Arc we just get in and connect with our various systems,” said Tyson McPherson, Development Manager at Parts Authority. “Now, whatever a customer brings to us, we can fit it in our Arc solution and we don’t have to do the development work that we’ve done in the past.”
“Now, whatever a customer brings to us, we can fit it in our Arc solution and we don’t have to do the development work that we’ve done in the past.”
– Tyson McPherson, Parts Authority Development Manager
The Solution: Simple, Scalable EDI Processes
Steve and Tyson set out to find a product that would help them automate and scale their EDI process. They chose CData Arc because its intuitive, no-code interface allowed them to map and build EDI integrations without the need for a developer.
“I liked the way the application was set up,” said Steve. “It’s so simple ¬– we can go into each workspace, see the available connectors, and just work through connecting everything visually. The whole process takes us minutes.”
Now, Parts Authority doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel each time a new customer requires a unique EDI solution. Developers can re-focus their attention on product innovation instead of creating and maintaining integrations.
“Arc has allowed us to essentially copy and paste the mapping process from customer to customer with a minimal amount of change for each, instead of gathering every requirement and building something from scratch each time,” said Steve.
CData Arc also makes troubleshooting EDI processes quicker and easier. Automated business rules and governance features allow Parts Authority’s IT team to monitor the status of their EDI workflows and receive automated notifications whenever there is an issue.
“It gave us the ability to watch what happens in those workflows and if there’s a step that failed, we get an alert so we can go in and easily fix it,” said Tyson. “In the past, we would have to go back, open up a server and look at code and logs to manually diagnose and fix the issue.”
On the few occasions when the Parts Authority team needs advice or help using the tool, they rely on the CData Arc support team.
“Arc support has been instrumental in getting us where we are with our workflows,” said Tyson. “I usually get a response to a support ticket within an hour. They’ll help with mapping, answer any questions, and even send samples. It’s really key because there’s not a lot of information out there on how to do this kind of thing. Arc has really been fantastic for us here.”
“Arc has allowed us to essentially copy and paste the mapping process from customer to customer with a minimal amount of change for each, instead of gathering every requirement and building something from scratch each time.”
– Steve Wojtowicz, Parts Authority Integrations Project Manager
