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Cecil's PO

I read Marlow's first column last week, and I have to say that I'm impressed.  I've been in the EDI world for a while, but he brought out a couple items I hadn't (yet) thought to complain about.

I was sitting at the Lobster Pound in Brewster, MA (Cape Cod) dipping small pieces of my 2.5 pound crustacean in melted butter as I thought about Marlow's point.  But I have to admit that the thought didn't last long, and I turned my concentration back to the steaming white meat on my plate. 

There are plenty of "lob and clam" shacks on the Cape, and Lobster Pound is definitely not the classiest, but it's tough to mess up cooking a lobster.  Besides the price was right and the ambiance was truly local.

But now that I'm done with cracking claws (at least for today)...

The ever-increasing pressure to lower expenses by any means possible leads some companies to take shortcut measures that might be considered drastic. At best they can be described as one-sided.  At worst, they are simply done out of ignorance. 
As I thought about Marlow's point... rationalizing EDI documents for multi-ship orders, I remembered just last week trying to deal with orders one of my clients was receiving from Saks.  They were getting one single PO with multiple Ship-To locations. 

This is in stark contrast to the orders they receive from their other 85 customers that simply send one PO for each ship-to.  Dealing with the logic of the Saks PO nearly sent me over the edge (I know... short trip). 

But at least now I understand why I was having such difficulty; this is simply the wrong way to produce these POs.

Not Lonely
Unfortunately Saks is not the only big retailer making things tough for its customers.  I've been told that Federated does the same thing.  Both of these companies are big enough to know better.  On the other hand, maybe they just don't know better. If you're dealing with one of these situations, you might be able to alleviate the condition by simply letting your customer know there's a better way.  I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to make life a little easier for their suppliers.  Or maybe not.

Anyhow, my important task for today is to figure out which seafood I'll be devouring, and were the event will take place.  I'll be on the Cape for another week, and hope that by then I'll be satiated, with seafood at least.

Cheers!
Cecil


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