Santa Monica Seafood’s new Baltimore location, photo courtesy of Seafood Source.

“GraceBlood has proven to be the perfect partner for the complexity of our industry, as well as our multi-faceted approach to our ERP migration project. Flexibility and scalability is what we were searching for and GraceBlood has delivered.” ~ Khai Vuong, Vice President of Information Technology

Executive Summary

Santa Monica Seafood (SMS), a prolific seafood supplier headquartered in southern California, was in the process of migrating to a new ERP system (Canopy by Aspen Systems, Inc.) and recognized it was the perfect time to also upgrade their EDI platform. Initially thinking they would go on-premise, but with 40 plus trading partners, massive expansion plans and an already lean IT staff, an introduction to GraceBlood’s VelociLink™ managed EDI platform led them to reassess the on-premise approach.

Challenges

One of the issues that needed to be addressed was due to the variability of SMS’ products, they are unable to receive EDI POs from many of their customers, therefore the need to maintain accurate ERP data for invoicing is critical. And due to the unpredictable nature of commercial fishing, SMS sometimes needs to substitute one product for another, adding more complexity to the invoicing process. Quality being a top priority for SMS, the ability to provide a comparable alternative is necessary to their commitment to customer satisfaction.

How VelociLink™ Helped

With plans to migrate to the new ERP for multiple locations, as well as maintaining the already bustling fresh and frozen divisions, SMS made the decision to leverage GraceBlood’s VelociLink™ managed EDI platform in a phased approach. Trusting EDI to the experts at GraceBlood freed up SMS’ IT stakeholders to focus on more strategic objectives necessary to their overall growth. Khai Vuong, Vice President of Information Technology stated, “GraceBlood has proven to be the perfect partner for the complexity of our industry, as well as our multi-faceted approach to our ERP migration project. Flexibility and scalability is what we were searching for and GraceBlood has delivered.”

The ERP migration continues to progress and GraceBlood has been instrumental in allowing SMS to phase it in methodically for large partners like Walmart by separating incoming data by location code- with some orders going to the new ERP and some going to the legacy system.

Results

Since go-live, GraceBlood’s VecliLink™ has sent and received tens of thousands of documents for SMS, which will grow exponentially once more locations area dded. In addition, SMS’ customer service reps are using VelociLink™ Analytics for invoice reconciliation and shipping confirmations, saving the IT team valuable time and resources.

GraceBlood is able to onboard new trading partners, as well as continue to migrate existing partners for SMS’ ongoing ERP migration, in a fraction of the time it took previously. Using GraceBlood’s GADGET methodology for onboarding allows SMS to have visibility and transparency into the process, knowing it will be completed on-time and within budget.

The perishable food industry is not without its challenges, but when GraceBlood and Aspen Systems team up – everybody wins.