Asked on every demo.
If yours is not here, ask us; the answer comes from the people who built it.
Which ERPs does it connect to?
Any ERP. The feed runs from your ERP to the portal: three exports, orders, deliveries and the supplier list, run on a timer and copy the current picture across. Nothing in your ERP changes unless you want it to; if you later want supplier confirmations and delivery notices back in the ERP, that is a further feed agreed with your IT team, not a different product. We give your IT team or ERP vendor a one-page spec for them and check every line of the first feed. Writing the exports is their work, for a good reason: they know your ERP and its database, and nobody should be writing queries against a database they do not know. A cloud ERP works the same way through its published connection.
Do suppliers have to pay or install anything?
No. Suppliers are invited by email, sign in with a password and a code from their phone, and use it in a web browser or on the phone itself. Add as many people per supplier as you like.
Can we see it before we decide?
Yes, on a demo call. Bring a real supplier problem and we walk it from the concern to the closed 8D, then show the order book as your suppliers would see it, with your own supplier names on it if you send us the list beforehand. After the call, if you want to try it for yourselves, we give your team a login on the demo site, a fictional manufacturer with a full supply base, to use for as long as you are deciding.
Our suppliers have never done an 8D. Will they cope?
That is what the training drawer is for. It sits on the 8D form itself, one tab per discipline, and explains what a containment action is, how to find a root cause with the fishbone and 5-why tools, and what a corrective action has to show. A supplier learns the method while doing it, and gets the value of it, not just the form.
What about the history in our spreadsheets and Word 8Ds?
Concerns and closed 8Ds can be imported from a spreadsheet during week 2, with their dates, suppliers and costs, so the PPM and cost of quality reports start with history rather than from zero.
A supplier has three accounts in our ERP. Are they three suppliers?
Only if the export says so. Each account in the supplier export carries a group code, and the portal treats every account with the same group code as one supplier: one login, one record, one history. Which accounts share a code is decided in your ERP by your IT team, in week 1, and the portal follows it on every feed. If a code changes later, a merge moves the history across and keeps a log.
Our ERP data is not perfect. Does that matter?
Supplier codes, part numbers and due dates come across as they are; the portal does not correct them, because it should not be guessing at your order book. What it does is make the problems visible: the first schedule is checked line by line with you, the feed page shows every run, and suppliers set up more than once can be merged in the portal. The first month often fixes more ERP data than the year before it, because someone is finally looking at it.
Do our suppliers have to buy a label printer?
No. The labels print on any printer: the Odette label two to an A4 sheet, or the compact label to the same standard four to a sheet. A supplier who wants a label printer can use a 4-inch one through its normal driver; nothing else is installed.
We already have EDI. Does this replace it?
No. It replaces the web EDI portal for the suppliers who cannot send EDI, which are usually the ones you most need ASNs from. Suppliers who already send you EDI carry on as they are.
Can our ERP read the ASN message?
Your IT team or your EDI translator maps one documented message once: JSON, or CSV as a header and a lines file, with everything a DESADV carries. It is the same message for every customer, so nothing is customised and nothing drifts.
How do we know the boxes were scanned, not a screen?
The photo. As each pallet is finished the phone asks for a photo of it, kept with the time and where the phone was. Where you switch it on, the phone also reads each box's own part label, so a wrong part is caught at the supplier's dock.
What does verified despatch cost our suppliers?
Nothing. A phone, any printer, and a DUNS number, which is free. No subscription, no app and no scanner.
Is anything extra?
No. Every customer has every module, every improvement, unlimited users and suppliers, as many ERPs and companies as they have, go-live and support, for one price by plant. The only things not in the price are writing your ERP exports (your IT team’s or ERP vendor’s job, as they know the system) and the software continuity licence, which some procurement teams ask for and which is priced separately.
Who supports it?
The people who built it. Support is founder-led by email and phone, with a feedback inbox inside the portal that goes straight to us.
See it with your own supply base.
A demo takes forty minutes. Bring a real supplier problem and we will walk it from the concern to the closed 8D, and show you the order book as your suppliers would see it.