Case Study – Mölnlycke

DCS Makes International Medical Products Company’s EDI More Efficient

The EDI Challenge

Mölnlycke is a Swedish company that manufactures and sells medical products.  They needed help to carefully configure the “ground work” for the rerouting of data from their U.S. headquarters in Norcross, GA to their main headquarters in Sweden.  AS2 had to be reconfigured to support EDI data to and from Trading Partners to Sweden to be processed for all Mölnlycke locations.  Specific EDI transactions were to be moved from Sweden to the United States for processing.  Mölnlycke-Sweden needed a solution to handle the file exceptions for the files to be processed at Mölnlycke-US.  This was where Data Communication Solutions (DCS) came in.  Senior EDI specialist Beth Moyer handled the process.

The Environment

Prior to DCS’ work, Mölnlycke-US and  Mölnlycke-Sweden were operating with separate EDI systems.  Mölnlycke-US was using Bizmanager 400/Bizconnect, while Mölnlycke-Sweden was using SEEBURGER.

The DCS Solution

The first step to DCS’ solution was to create copies of all files received and sent via PI™  (the communication gateway for SAP).  The copied files were then sent to Mölnlycke-US via SFTP to a “staging area” within Mölnlycke-US’ i-Series IFS.  Once the files were received into the staging area, a PowerShell script was created to move only the EDI 844 (product transfer account adjustment), 852 (product activity data), and 867 (product transfer and resale report) transaction files (based on the payload in the data) to be processed and archived; all other EDI transaction files were moved to the archive directories.  This process was automated through Windows Task Scheduler.  Ultimately, both Mölnlycke-Sweden and Molnlycke-US were migrated to SAP-PI – Mölnlycke-Sweden from SEEBURGER and Mölnlycke-US from BizManager 400/BizConnect.

The Result

All of Mölnlycke’s EDI is now processed at one location (except for the three transactions specific to Mölnlycke-US).  This saves hours of work for other locations.  In keeping data processes to one location, the process ensures HIPAA compliancy overall for the company.

In Summary

• Challenge: Mölnlycke-Sweden needed to resolve an issue for the “communication switch” (where data transfer comIB-OBCommunications-SAP-PImunication had changed to Sweden) prior to SAP preparation for Go-Live.  Solution: DCS suggested to create the FTP “staging area” for Mölnlycke-US to continue processing EDI files until SAP was in Production.  The “staging area” was beneficial in archiving all EDI data even after SAP for Mölnlycke-Sweden was promoted to Production.
• Challenge: Mölnlycke-US faced issues with how to configure the date for TrustedLink to work to/from PI gateway, along with the fact that they needed to replace the Bizmanager 400\Bizconnect configuration for TrustedLink.  Solution: DCS added a new CL program to support processing of EDI files, where Bizmanager 400\Bizconnect was no longer needed, and was uninstalled.
• Challenge: Prior to SAP being promoted into Production, Mölnlycke-Sweden had faced an issue with applications not triggering (on their end) as expected during parallel testing.  Solution: DCS wrote a PowerShell script that sent a notification email to the associated parties whenever a file was in triggered folder in the IFS if it was in that folder longer than 30 minutes (based on the file creation date).

Thanks to DCS’ work, Mölnlycke’s EDI is running more efficiently.  DCS has provided EDI solutions for many more medical products companies and can help yours as well.  To learn more, contact DCS for your FREE assessment.

Beth Moyer joined DCS in 2012.  She has 10 years of experience working in various industries, including: healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and entertainment.  Beth has experience with numerous EDI systems including: IBM Gentran:Server and Integrator, Infor VISUAL, SAP GXS, EXTOL Business Integrator, and E-Commerce Gateway. She also has extensive experience with Oracle JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne.