the companies involved and their business relationships

The network extends over the whole footwear pipeline and includes shoemakers, shoes component manufacturers, wholesale shoe traders and retailers in Portugal and Spain.

Three shoemakers Cindicalfe (Indùstria de Calçado), Centenàrio (Camilo Martins Ferreira&fillhos Ld) and Máximo Internacional exchange documents with two of their component suppliers: Lusocal (Artigos Para Calçado) and Fivelarte (Componentes Para Calçado).

On the downstream side, the two wholesalers, Maximo Internacional and Trielle Espanã (this one selling and buying footwear in both Spain and Portugal), exchange documents with both Globo Vermelho and Prof (Santos & Junior), a retail company with 18 shops in Portugal, who import about 60% of footwear articles from Italy.

The network is based on the ShoeBIZ platform which has been adapted to comply with the eBIZ-TCF architecture. This platform is designed to support the secure exchange of standard business documents and has been made available by CTCP (Centro Tecnológico do Calçado de Portugal). It was developed by INESC Porto for CTCP in 2006.

The ICT supplier Oficina de Soluções, adapted their companies’ ERP to interoperate with the ShoeBIZ platform and also provided the necessary training for the companies involved.


the pilot workflow: e-business network set up and the documents exchanged

the e-business network set up and the documents being exchanged

Order, order confirmation, order status, catalogue (including image) data is exchanged between the shoe makers and the component suppliers. Shoe catalogues, orders, order confirmations, despatch advices are exchanged between retailers, distributors and shoe producers.

This network has also established a link between the ShoeBIZ platform and the Shoenet platform in Spain, allowing companies registered in each platform to be accessible by its peers in the other platform enabling Company Profile data and shoe catalogues with prices to be exchanged between the two networks.

Resulting benefits

The shoe makers and the component suppliers have reported dramatic improvements in order processing times as well as simpler internal orders management (labelling, logistics, etc.) and a virtual zero-error order placement as a consequence of the implementation of a real-time updated catalogue with images.

Planned future activities

The link implemented between ShoeBIZ and Shoenet is opening up new opportunities for the extension of the network. In Portugal, the ICT supplier Oficina de Soluções is actively proposing eBIZ-TCF implementations to its customers in the footwear industry and CTCP is committed to extending the eBIZ-TCF compliant ShoeBIZ platform to other associated footwear companies.

Lessons Learnt

ICT providers are key drivers for e-Business implementations, especially in small companies.

Statement by Mr. Carlos Cardeiro CEO, Oficina de Soluções:
'For an ICT provider eBIZ offer many advantages. With the eBIZ-TCF standard we can minimize the effort for integration processes between the companies, namely in the implementation in the field. Before that, in many small companies what prevented small companies to adopt EDI solutions was the high cost of mapping articles codes and document format between customers and suppliers, as each company wants to use their own.'

Contact:

Cèsar Toscano
INESC Porto (Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto)
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 378, 4200 - 465 Porto, Portugal
Tel: +351 222 094 000
ctoscano@inescporto.pt

Additional ICT information
Carlos Cardeiro
Oficina de Soluções Lda,
Rua de Sobreiral, 86, 3700-387 S. João da Madeira, Portugal
+351 256 832 547
carlos.cardeiro@oficinasoftware.pt