Belleville Boot Company strengthens EDI operations with VelociLink™

Photo courtesy of Belleville Boot Company.

“Before GraceBlood, EDI was difficult to manage with one person handling onboarding, monitoring, and ERP coordination. VelociLink™ Managed Services took that pressure off and gave us confidence in our EDI operations.” ~ Ryan Kennett, IT Manager and EDI Coordinator

Executive Summary: Belleville Boot Company EDI Case Study

Belleville Boot Company®, headquartered in Belleville, Illinois, is the oldest and leading manufacturer of boots for the U.S. Military. Founded in 1904, Belleville Boot Company has supplied high-performance military footwear to the Department of Defense since World War I and continues to support all branches of the U.S. Military, along with Law Enforcement and Public Safety agencies.

As a fifth-generation, family-owned company, Belleville Boot Company has built its reputation on durability, innovation, and reliability—values that extend beyond its products and into its supply chain operations. With business volume steadily increasing and EDI playing a critical role in servicing government and commercial partners, Belleville Boot Company recognized the need to modernize how EDI was managed without disrupting its existing ERP environment.

Processing many thousands of EDI transactions per month, Belleville Boot Company turned to GraceBlood’s VelociLink™ Managed Services to relieve mounting operational pressure and position themselves for scalable growth.

Challenges

Belleville Boot Company was operating on an outdated Gentran EDI platform alongside a custom-built ERP that was difficult to integrate with and maintain. While there are plans to migrate to a new ERP at some point, there is currently no defined timeline, making it essential to find an EDI solution capable of supporting their legacy ERP, as well as a more modern cloud-based ERP in the future. The complexity of the system required the EDI administrator to map transactions twice, increasing both workload and the risk of errors.

In addition, Belleville Boot Company supported a mix of FTP, AS2 and VAN connections, which added further complexity to partner communications and ongoing maintenance. Over time, EDI volume steadily increased, and with only one person managing onboarding, mapping, monitoring, and ERP coordination, the process became unsustainable. A growing backlog of trading partners waiting to be onboarded began to form, creating operational bottlenecks. Ryan Kennett, IT Manager and EDI Coordinator, found himself wearing too many hats. Between managing ERP facing responsibilities and handling day-to-day EDI operations, there was little room to focus on strategic initiatives or process improvement.

How VelociLink™ Helped

Belleville Boot Company engaged GraceBlood’s VelociLink™ Managed EDI to offload time-intensive and operationally demanding aspects of EDI management. GraceBlood assumed responsibility for partner onboarding, connection setup across FTP, AS2, and VAN, ongoing transaction monitoring, issue resolution, and partner coordination. This transition immediately reduced pressure on internal IT resources. By removing the burden of onboarding efforts and connection management, GraceBlood helped eliminate the backlog of trading partners. A significant benefit was the removal of EDI monitoring from Ryan’s daily responsibilities. With GraceBlood actively overseeing transactions and handling exceptions, Ryan was able to refocus his efforts on ERP-facing tasks and internal systems rather than day-to-day EDI firefighting.

Results

With VelociLink™ Managed Services in place, Belleville Boot Company gained a more stable and scalable EDI operation without disrupting its existing ERP environment. Trading partner onboarding accelerated, duplicate mapping efforts were eliminated, and transaction monitoring became consistent and reliable without requiring internal intervention. Security and compliance were also key considerations for Belleville Boot Company. GraceBlood’s SOC-certification provided the assurance required to support internal governance and security expectations. Belleville Boot Company restored balance to its IT operations. By entrusting EDI management to GraceBlood, the company freed up resources, reduced operational risk, and positioned itself to support continued growth. They are now well-prepared to adapt to a future ERP migration with built-in API capabilities, on its own timeline, while maintaining the level of reliability and performance expected by the U.S. Military and other mission-critical partners.