Managing Automation - February 2009 - (Page 41) As pricing schemes and fulfillment channels proliferate, manufacturers are finding that the order-to-cash process is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. Luckily, a host of software solutions can ease the burden. BY L A U R E N G I B B O N S PA U L F Industries exemplifies the complexity of the order-to-cash cycle facing many manufacturers today. The $2.8 billion company markets fer tilizer products made at plants in Florida, Louisiana, and Alberta, Canada. The company moves its product in bulk by pipeline, vessels, barges, railcars, and trucks throughout North America. CF Industries offers four different pricing options to its customers, who buy fertilizer from CF’s plants, warehouses, and terminals. With such a diverse order landscape, transaction errors are not uncommon. At least they were not before the company deployed a new order management and fulfillment system in 2004. At the time, CF Industries used three different homegrown systems for order management, pricing, and billing, complicating its processes even further. “The old system would sometimes bill out the wrong price,” says Christine Dingman, director of sales support at CF Industries. CF Industries isn’t the only manufacturer tr ying to cope with the consequences of increasingly complex orderto-cash processes. Traditionally, the order-to-cash process looked like this: A customer sent a manufacturer an order, and then the manufacturer made the product, shipped it to the customer, and sent an invoice. As the saying goes, that was then and this is now. Today, products are manufactured by a variety of outsourced providers all over the globe 41 February 2009 ma Photo: Opis
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