B-Global builds modular solutions, which can be easily implemented in phases, with minimal disruption and maximum return on investment. The technology building blocks cover complex purchasing, logistics tracking, invoice management, forecast planning and outbound fulfillment. Implementations usually take three months from concept to deployment and the typical return on investment is usually less than six months.

gTE allows companies to leverage the investment in existing ERP systems and infrastructure by providing a set of intelligent applications, which act as a business process optimization layer. The set of applications is focused on allowing companies to collaborate with their trading partners in a very efficient and cost-effective manner. This reduces the cost of collaboration thus reducing operational cost, whilst increasing customer satisfaction. The solution is robust, highly scalable and can be deployed in mission critical environments. The solution technology’s modular design means that key areas of business process can be isolated and implemented quickly. Related process areas can be easily enabled by simple addition at a later date with zero disruption to the organization.

gTE consists of two separate suites: gTE Hub and gTE Client. gTE Hub consists of the following modules:

Procurement Management

This module deals with the creation, approval and transmission of all purchase orders. It also handles the status of shipment against purchase orders and partial shipments against blanket purchase orders. Automated alerts are raised in the event of quantity depletion against blanket orders. The module also supports same part procurement from multiple suppliers and deals with the challenge of spend allocation against multiple suppliers for the same part.

Material Shortage Management

The module provides pro-active shortage management for parts for multiple factories across the globe. A material turn around dashboard is provided, which monitors the individual buyer responsiveness to fix actual and potential shortages against a predetermined matrix. The module supports parts and materials for both manufacturing companies and third party merge centers.

Forecast Collaboration Management

The module allows the buyer to create and transmit forecasts to suppliers. It also keeps an audit trail of supplier commitments against forecast requests. Supporting import and export to and from excel spreadsheets, the module is easily populated by the trading partner with minimal manual input.

Finance Management

The module provides the ability to receive electronic invoices in a standard format and executes a three way match on each invoice prior to transmission to a backend ERP system. In the event of an invoice rejection the invoice is resent back to the supplier for resubmission. Both the buyer side and supplier side have total visibility of the exact status of each invoice. The remittance payment is sent from the buyer to the supplier with full identification of invoices to be paid by the remittance.

gTE Client enables suppliers to interact with the gTE Hub software in the areas described above, so they can automate and optimize all business processes between their trading partners.

The central element handles the receipt of Advanced Shipment Notifications (ASNs) from suppliers to the hub, the pull signals to the various hubs and the reconciliation of pull signals and good receipts. The system provides a complete view of all inventory on a global basis.

The second element is the 3PL solution, which takes input from the 3PL’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) and propagates receipt of goods to the supplier and the buyer. It also propagates the GRN (Goods Receipt Notification) and POD (Proof of Delivery) from the buyer side to the supplier, as well as the consumption of goods from the hub in real-time.

The third element of the solution is at the supplier site where all inventory movement is visible. An inventory management system is provided so the supplier can view inventory on a global basis by hub, by part number or by in-transit inventory and make the necessary arrangements.

The solution provides detailed track and trace capability along with inventory management of multiple delivery centers. Track and Trace functionality means there are consistently defined tracking points with LSP (Logistics Service Providers) validations throughout the entire delivery process. gFE also includes ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) calculation for customer shipments and electronic proof of delivery for revenue recognition purposes.

The business focus is to achieve the concept of one order, one invoice, one shipment. This provides the best customer experience and minimizes logistics cost. gFE supports partial shipments, special instructions and expedited shipments, as well as order changes and cancellations along with the necessary processes for order reversal/change.

The system provides a properly managed and defined process complete with accountability and visibility throughout the network. Inventory integrity and managed deviations are ensured, whilst integrated merge-hub freight costs are achieved and inventory consumption is properly managed.

Demand Planning and Supply Network Planning are key aspects for enabling successful collaboration across the supply chain. gPE is able to model demand and supply variability and automatically generate a globally optimal inventory mix across many thousands SKU-locations.

Many distribution-intensive companies are still not achieving the customer service levels they would like, despite investing in other technology. Forecasts are still not accurate enough and too many supply chain “exceptions” are taking place, causing costly expedition or manual intervention. Applying powerful analytics and stochastic optimization through the use of gPE can solve these common problems

Volatility through the demand and supply chain causes imbalance within the inventory mix. Manual intervention is used to compensate when exceptions occur. This intervention is not scientific and is handled on an ad hoc basis, without a full understanding of the longer term consequences. This expedited and forward deployed stock drives up inventories and working capital.

gPE dynamically generates optimal inventory targets and provides a collaborative management process for setting global service levels and delivering organizational goals. gPE provide the near real-time view of the actual against plan and can provide adjusted demand plans to the gTE for transmission to the suppliers and logistics providers.