K'NEX Brands Connects Securely with Retailers
K'NEX Brands just may be the most innovative and fastest growing construction toy company in the world. Founded in 1992, the privately held company makes and sells what has become one of the world's leading integrated construction systems for children, which are designed and manufactured at K'NEX's headquarters and manufacturing facility in Hatfield, Pa.
K'NEX is also the exclusive distributor of BRIO trains and toys in North America, and designs and manufactures Lincoln Logs sets under license from Hasbro. The company also designs, manufactures and sells products developed specifically for use in schools under the K'NEX Education brand. Winner of over 200 international awards, the company's toys are sold in over 20 countries through major retailers, online stores and independently-owned toy stores. Its largest trading partners include Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target.
Initial Adoption
Like many other manufacturers, K'NEX communicated with most of its retailer customers through a secure EDI VAN during its first decade in business. When Wal-Mart implemented an AS2 solution hub at its data center in 2003, it encouraged all of its suppliers to implement their own AS2 "spokes" as well, and communicate directly with Wal-Mart over the Internet. Wal-Mart had selected nuBridges as its AS2 software provider and it was no secret to its trading partners that the company was pleased with their choice.
Tasked with looking into AS2 solutions to comply with Wal-Mart's wishes, Tony Kratowicz, K'NEX's CIO, decided to evaluate products based on the findings of The Drummond Group -- a B2B software certification firm that certifies interoperability between software products. After installing and evaluating several AS2 solutions, Kratowicz chose nuBridges Exchange based on its flexibility, ease of use and price.
"We found that the feature sets of the major AS2 providers are similar, but what it came down to for us was how easy it was to install and configure nuBridges Exchange," says Kratowicz.
Initially adopting the software to communicate with Wal-Mart U.S. and Wal-Mart Canada, K'NEX quickly appreciated the benefits of using AS2. "As soon as we set up nuBridges Exchange to communicate with Wal-Mart, we realized a huge cost savings and we were sold on AS2 technology," says Kratowicz. "With AS2, the costs are fixed once you're set up and it's a highly secure point-to-point communication. Not only does it dramatically reduce the cost of communicating with our trading partners, but it makes it much easier to budget with AS2 because it eliminates the variable per character transmission fees you pay to a VAN provider."
Platform Conversion
Quickly sold on the technology, the company rapidly began converting its other trading partners to AS2 starting with its largest volume partners, including Target and Toys R Us. "It is very easy to add other AS2-capable retailers with nuBridges Exchange," explains Kratowicz. "We simply exchange private encryption/decryption keys with each partner by email and enter the keys into nuBridges Exchange. Just as important, because nuBridges Exchange complies with the Drummond Group's requirements for interoperability with other AS2 applications, compatibility has never been an issue when we add new trading partners." Moving its retail trading partners to AS2 has become a frequent event. K'NEX upgraded its original five-user license to 10-user license, then to an unlimited license last year, and is adding new partners on a regular basis.
It wasn't long before nuBridges Exchange became K'NEX's de facto communication standard for external EDI data exchange, which includes orders, order acknowledgements, order changes, advance ship notices (ASN), invoices, payment remittances and point-of-sale (POS) transactions. Today, the company communicates with 80 percent of its retail partners using nuBridges Exchange, while a small percentage continues to order through a VAN or through reps, and several of the company's smallest customers still fax orders.
K'NEX runs nuBridges Exchange on a Windows Server with a dedicated Internet connection. The cost to implement AS2 for K'NEX was the cost of the server hardware, the licenses for typical Windows Server software and nuBridges Exchange, and the ongoing costs of the Internet connection and annual software maintenance fees.
"With AS2, our costs are upfront and fixed," said Kratowicz. "When we compared that to the previous per character charges of using a VAN, we found that our costs with AS2 are a fraction of what our per character costs were."
Effortless Benefits
Kratowicz found that nuBridges Exchange integrated effortlessly with K'NEX's ERP system to automate the order process. "Because AS2 communicates much like a VAN or FTP communication, it was very easy to receive the data coming through nuBridges Exchange in a format compatible with our ERP system," he says. "It runs 24/7 and requires no manual interaction."
Kratowicz occasionally calls nuBridges technical support when tasked with accommodating a special configuration or requirement to add a new trading partner. "A nuBridges customer support technician has answered the phone every time I've called and, without exception, they've answered my questions on the first call," says Kratowicz.
"To say the cost savings of using nuBridges Exchange is 'much lower' than using other VAN vendors to communicate with our trading partners doesn't sum it up," says Kratowicz. "Our costs to drive our business through a VAN were quite high and with each retailer who adopts AS2, we're seeing a corresponding decrease in EDI operating costs. To put it into perspective, we recently converted a trading partner a few months ago where our share of the charges for data transmission with that one customer over a VAN for a single month was more than the cost of the annual licensing fee for nuBridges Exchange."
"The way we do business, using nuBridges Exchange for AS2 communications is a big, big cost savings," concludes Kratowicz. "There are no technical problems. There are no supplier issues. At the end of the day, nuBridges Exchange does exactly what it's supposed to do."
K'NEX is also the exclusive distributor of BRIO trains and toys in North America, and designs and manufactures Lincoln Logs sets under license from Hasbro. The company also designs, manufactures and sells products developed specifically for use in schools under the K'NEX Education brand. Winner of over 200 international awards, the company's toys are sold in over 20 countries through major retailers, online stores and independently-owned toy stores. Its largest trading partners include Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target.
Initial Adoption
Like many other manufacturers, K'NEX communicated with most of its retailer customers through a secure EDI VAN during its first decade in business. When Wal-Mart implemented an AS2 solution hub at its data center in 2003, it encouraged all of its suppliers to implement their own AS2 "spokes" as well, and communicate directly with Wal-Mart over the Internet. Wal-Mart had selected nuBridges as its AS2 software provider and it was no secret to its trading partners that the company was pleased with their choice.
Tasked with looking into AS2 solutions to comply with Wal-Mart's wishes, Tony Kratowicz, K'NEX's CIO, decided to evaluate products based on the findings of The Drummond Group -- a B2B software certification firm that certifies interoperability between software products. After installing and evaluating several AS2 solutions, Kratowicz chose nuBridges Exchange based on its flexibility, ease of use and price.
"We found that the feature sets of the major AS2 providers are similar, but what it came down to for us was how easy it was to install and configure nuBridges Exchange," says Kratowicz.
Initially adopting the software to communicate with Wal-Mart U.S. and Wal-Mart Canada, K'NEX quickly appreciated the benefits of using AS2. "As soon as we set up nuBridges Exchange to communicate with Wal-Mart, we realized a huge cost savings and we were sold on AS2 technology," says Kratowicz. "With AS2, the costs are fixed once you're set up and it's a highly secure point-to-point communication. Not only does it dramatically reduce the cost of communicating with our trading partners, but it makes it much easier to budget with AS2 because it eliminates the variable per character transmission fees you pay to a VAN provider."
Platform Conversion
Quickly sold on the technology, the company rapidly began converting its other trading partners to AS2 starting with its largest volume partners, including Target and Toys R Us. "It is very easy to add other AS2-capable retailers with nuBridges Exchange," explains Kratowicz. "We simply exchange private encryption/decryption keys with each partner by email and enter the keys into nuBridges Exchange. Just as important, because nuBridges Exchange complies with the Drummond Group's requirements for interoperability with other AS2 applications, compatibility has never been an issue when we add new trading partners." Moving its retail trading partners to AS2 has become a frequent event. K'NEX upgraded its original five-user license to 10-user license, then to an unlimited license last year, and is adding new partners on a regular basis.
It wasn't long before nuBridges Exchange became K'NEX's de facto communication standard for external EDI data exchange, which includes orders, order acknowledgements, order changes, advance ship notices (ASN), invoices, payment remittances and point-of-sale (POS) transactions. Today, the company communicates with 80 percent of its retail partners using nuBridges Exchange, while a small percentage continues to order through a VAN or through reps, and several of the company's smallest customers still fax orders.
K'NEX runs nuBridges Exchange on a Windows Server with a dedicated Internet connection. The cost to implement AS2 for K'NEX was the cost of the server hardware, the licenses for typical Windows Server software and nuBridges Exchange, and the ongoing costs of the Internet connection and annual software maintenance fees.
"With AS2, our costs are upfront and fixed," said Kratowicz. "When we compared that to the previous per character charges of using a VAN, we found that our costs with AS2 are a fraction of what our per character costs were."
Effortless Benefits
Kratowicz found that nuBridges Exchange integrated effortlessly with K'NEX's ERP system to automate the order process. "Because AS2 communicates much like a VAN or FTP communication, it was very easy to receive the data coming through nuBridges Exchange in a format compatible with our ERP system," he says. "It runs 24/7 and requires no manual interaction."
Kratowicz occasionally calls nuBridges technical support when tasked with accommodating a special configuration or requirement to add a new trading partner. "A nuBridges customer support technician has answered the phone every time I've called and, without exception, they've answered my questions on the first call," says Kratowicz.
"To say the cost savings of using nuBridges Exchange is 'much lower' than using other VAN vendors to communicate with our trading partners doesn't sum it up," says Kratowicz. "Our costs to drive our business through a VAN were quite high and with each retailer who adopts AS2, we're seeing a corresponding decrease in EDI operating costs. To put it into perspective, we recently converted a trading partner a few months ago where our share of the charges for data transmission with that one customer over a VAN for a single month was more than the cost of the annual licensing fee for nuBridges Exchange."
"The way we do business, using nuBridges Exchange for AS2 communications is a big, big cost savings," concludes Kratowicz. "There are no technical problems. There are no supplier issues. At the end of the day, nuBridges Exchange does exactly what it's supposed to do."