Barcode Scanning Isn’t the Finish Line in JD Edwards

Yes, absolutely. That kind of, yeah. That kind of brings us to the technology foundation behind the actual scan.

So many companies or many JD Edwards companies, I should say, have already have a barcode solution in place. What problems can really show up with maybe an older system or a bolt on scanning solution?

I think your, your main thing you're going to run into probably is going to be your challenge around support, right? Challenge around upgrades, challenge around security priority development style, right, Depending on on software. So you're going to get a lot of that it, it creates the need for a team of people, right, to maintain that, that piece of software because it is outside of your JD Edwards installation.

So you're going to need to maintain that. You're going to need to maintain those pieces that, you know that, like we said, like security, you're going to need to maintain all those things. And as I said, they're, they're, they're separate servers possibly, right? If it's a separate piece of software, it might need to be installed on a separate server. It might need to be installed on a separate database. You might have to have a separate security model in place. There might be and when it comes down to security, but you know, are you going to need to use a proxy user? Are you going to be able to use the JD Edwards user? Things like things like that that are are are fine, right And in the general scope of what what you're implementing, but that does like you said, it creates friction, right? It creates a another piece of hardware software that you have to maintain at A at a corporate level, right.

So it's so it's kind of like a tool that once helped the warehouse move a lot faster can actually become something that like blocks modernization.

Yeah, I think technology has brought us to the point where what once was great and, and, and perfectly acceptable and, and, and an improvement has now become, you know, behind in ways behind the modernization trend, behind the ability to use something that's architecturally within the four walls of JD Edwards, right.

I think it gives us that, that we have now advanced the ability to solve problems within JD Edwards architecture and kind of eliminate that process, eliminate that separateness of, of an, of an implementation.

Yeah, so let's dive in a little bit of where that separateness could maybe go away. How does JD Edwards native approach change this entire conversation?

Right? So let's, we'll, we'll take our scan ability product, right? It uses orchestrations that are obviously built within JD Edwards and it utilizes JD Edwards processes. So I don't, I don't want to go into a deep dev orchestration studio because we probably talked about that before on the podcast, but essentially we're building orchestrations that perform the steps that you, the user would use.

So if you're going to do a peer receipt, right, the user is going to go to their application and receive that, Our scan ability tool will look no different. You're going to go in and you're going to be within the architecture of the system. So whether that's picking, receiving, shipping, cyber accounts, whatever, whatever JD Edwards solution that you use that's built into JD Edwards, that's ultimately what a tool that's native to JD Edwards is going to do. It's going to piggyback off the already in place architecture that was implemented.

And you're up in your in your last upgrade or when you first implemented JD Edwards, right? Which goes to the next point of like easier to upgrade, easier to secure because you're only doing it once, right? That whole process begins, becomes enveloped inside your JD Edwards installation, right? You're in JD implementation. So your supports going to be more in line. Your security is going to be more in line. Upgrades are going to be easier, right? Because the orchestration tool is just going to piggyback right off that up upgrade, right?

So the goal isn't just to scan, right? This is why we're here. The goal is to modernize the, the goal is to have your data collection become modern, right?

And so obviously AI is something that everyone's really pushing right now. How would this kind of integrate to a future AI agent to make some of these people's lives a little bit easier, right?

So essentially we're, if we're, if we've solved a problem where we're using orchestrations, right? To, to, to build applications and to build your, your, your essentialist workflows, we will be able to in the future state. Like we were working on a suite of, of agents and in particular, like, let's say AP, right? We're working on AP agents.

And so if you've used your scan ability tool to do your P receiving, right, we're going to have potentially have agents and this is not just for AP, but for inventory as well. We're going to have agents that are going to be able to be in place to help, let's say voucher matching processor or things that things of that nature where we're going to be able to automate so much more of your process.

That really kind of does have to do with with mobile data collection, but it's also enhancing an enhancement too, right? It's on top of so you'll open your world up, you'll open your world up to be able to take advantage of AI, which probably let's not even a few years ago that would that even be a conversation, right. Like I I think that that kind of wild. Did you even suggest that?

But yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We're we're there and we're building them now. So yeah. And that really does play into the what happens after the scan.

Practical Automation Examples and Modernization Strategy

And I think that's pretty exciting for an industry that is as long in the tooth as you might think it is. I think it's it's an injection of the future into JD Edwards. And I think from my perspective, having been in the industry this long, I doubt that I would have seen this kind of revitalization before. But I think of the ability that we're going to get now where we can plug in modern tools and modern solutions into a JD Edwards system. I think how can that not excite people that run the system day in, day out?

Yeah. And there might be some people that are listening to this and they're like, oh, so you're just going to eliminate my job? No, it's not like that at all. It will support your warehouse team, but it won't replace your operational judgement because at the end of the day, that is what you're there for. It's not about these manual tasks that are repeatable and repeatable, and you're doing the same thing every day. That just doesn't make sense. It's about the next steps. It'll allow you to make more operational judgement calls than having to do the same thing every single day.

But so for companies listening, the path forward does not have to be a massive transformation project. The better approach is usually does. Start with one visible pain point. Prove the value and then expand from there. We talked about quick wins on this episode on these podcasts so much, but it is the right thing to do is start small and expand from there.

But for customers who say, all right, this sounds great, but we can't really take on a massive transformation project, maybe they do want to focus on one specific pain point. Where should they really start to figure out where that pain point is?

Yeah, I mean, I think you would want to start with a process assessment, right? You map what happens in your warehouse scans, receiving, picking, shipping, transfer cycle counts of the whole. It's a whole enchilada, right? Get an idea and, and, and I'm sure we can help you do this, but get an idea of what you're doing inside your warehouse. What happens with each of your scans?

And I know that might feel daunting, but but as nay said, you got to start small. And maybe you start with maybe you have a particular workflow that is a pinpoint, right? We can go there. And what's a high value workflow? What's something that you use every day that's kind of critical to your business? You know, what areas impact the business most, right? And where can we help?

But could we reduce shipping errors? Could we improve inventory accuracy? Can we eliminate manual review, speed up, you know, a process, improve visibility? Like we are here to help that modernization. And it doesn't have to be the whole thing. In fact, that's pretty daunting, right? You know, I don't think that anybody would want to take on just all of their, you know, mobile data collection solution. But we are here to modernize and we can't. We have the tools now to do that modernization. And I think if we start small, we can prove that value. And then once you prove that value, it's pretty easy to expand upon.

So are we talking about a phased approach here for scan ability?

Well, we have, yeah, we have third, we have about 30 continued workflows already, right, that are as is that kind of piggyback already off of the business needs of of a typical data collection barcode solution, right. So we offer that we can modify those. We can, we can create new ones. We can, we can give you that. We can hand over kind of the road map of here's here's what you might need to get started. Or obviously we can do assessments of what you do today, right? We, I've been on a couple projects already where we're, we're taking into account what, what do you have solved today? And then how can we, Yep, essentially modernize it, right?

So that, that makes a lot of sense. So it's you can take it as is if you are a typical warehouse or if you do think that, all right, we we have a lot of very Cus like customized situations processes that we have in here. You can also kind of adhere to that. So it's not a one-size-fits-all. It's a let's see what you truly need and we can see what we can plug in automatically and what might need a little bit more work. Am I right in that?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of your, a lot of customers out there are going to have, they're going to have within their solution of, of, of barcode scanning, you know, workflow scripts, whatever you want to call them. You're going to have your low hanging fruit, which are just simple, straightforward, like, OK, this, this transaction is super easy. We never worry about it. It always works. But they're also going to have the complicated, troublesome salute tap, you know, workflows that are like, Oh my gosh, this is a really difficult process. And in fact, we fall down a lot because of this or that, right?

So everybody's going to have, you know, an amalgamation of simple to difficult, right? But our goal obviously through all of that would be to help you get native, right. You use our orchestration tool based approach, right? To to to build a solution that's less maintenance intensive, right? Less prone to researching issues, tracking down failures and things like that, right?

So maybe for a team that's out there right now, what should maybe leaders ask their teams after hearing this episode, right?

I think you really want to boil down to what happens after a warehouse scan, right? What steps, manual or not happen, whether it's a possible you need reporting, what whatever you might do after your warehouse scan, you need to dig into what happens, what's going on after that, what cues those reports what what triggers a person to go check a table inside the system and how often does that process break?

Are there delays? What happens if something falls down? Does anybody know about it? Is anybody notified or is it just a, Oh no, this process and hasn't worked since Saturday morning That happens and I've been on that team. I know what that's like.

You know what, what is JD Edwards already doing for you? That is manual that we can automate as well. So I think there are there's a good set of questions you can ask your team to get started with just having the conversation of modernization.

If a team were to go back after this episode and they're going to their team and they're trying to figure out exactly what to say after watching this, what would you say the main take away would be?

Absolutely. I think barcode scanning mobile data collection is not the finish line. In fact, we're we're arguing that it's the beginning of the process. We're arguing that that's where they're really real value becomes from, right.

Is that at you've now as you modernize your software, as you modernize your data collection process, we can now create visibility trigger actions, you know, reduce manual monitoring and help you respond faster to your data collection that you've been doing for years, right?

We're taking that system that is worth for you. And now we're taking it, modernizing it, making it more in line JD Edwards, more within the architecture of JD Edwards by using native tools like orchestration studio workflows, our scan ability product. Obviously, we're going to take that process in place and we're going to modernize it. We're going to help make that streamline and less manual, less prone to failures here and there.

So if your warehouse is already scanning barcodes, but your team is still manually chasing exceptions, checking queues, refreshing reports, or waiting for someone to notice a problem, there may be a major modernization opportunity sitting right inside your JD Edwards environment.

ERP Suites helps JD Edwards customers connect to warehouse activity to real time visibility, orchestrator based workflows, simplifies securities, easier upgrades, and modern mobile data collections through scan Ability.

To learn more, visit erpsuites.com and explore ERP Suites Scan ability for JD Edwards.

But that's it for today's episode of Not Your Grandpa's JD Edwards. A huge shout out to you, Steve, for joining us and helping us think beyond the scam. Because captioning warehouse data is important, but what happens next? It's where modernization really starts.

If you found this episode helpful, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone in your operations warehouse IT or even your JD Edwards team.

But until next time, Kee modernizing, Kee asking better questions and Kee getting more from JD Edwards.

Catch you next time.