Grant & Stone builds new supply chain foundations with Wesupply

Specialist UK builders merchant Grant & Stone has laid new foundations for cost effective and efficient supplier trading using OneTime, Wesupply's fully managed EDI service. Grant & Stone joins a growing number of building merchants and suppliers now able to use EDI to improve their supply chain accuracy and visibility, through Wesupply's managed service approach and established market network. OneTime will break new ground in Grant & Stone's trading capability, initially with 16 major suppliers including F&P Wholesale, Ideal Bathrooms, Bristan and Aqualisa.

Suppliers will use the service to exchange invoices and orders securely and accurately, either via the web or directly from back office systems using Tradacoms, ASCII or XML formats. As an open platform OneTime connects easily to industry ERP platforms, including Grant & Stone's SolarSoft system.

Dave Oliver, IT Manager, Grant & Stone, said, "This is the first step in our new plans to improve supply chain performance using IT. Wesupply's fully managed approach has allowed us to adopt EDI but not suffer the traditionally burdensome aspects of the technology, such as trading partner configuration and expensive IT overheads and knowledge."

Jerry Quinn, Director of Sales – Building & Distribution, Wesupply, said, "Trading electronically with suppliers can be a complex task, involving multiple communication methods, formats and protocols and focused builders merchants like Grant & Stone often find this to be a difficult step. As more suppliers come on board, the various dimensions, permutations and costs of EDI increase further, so by offering a fully managed approach we provide an attractive alternative that controls costs whilst improving business performance."