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(Deutsch) Im Interview: Daniel Plohnke, CEO Enventa Group

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Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Daniel Plohnke ist der Geschäftsführer der enventa Group GmbH, einem führenden Unternehmen im Bereich der Softwarelösungen für die Textilbranche. Mit seiner langjährigen Erfahrung und Leidenschaft für die Digitalisierung und EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) hat er das Unternehmen erfolgreich durch die Herausforderungen der digitalen Transformation geführt.
Im Rahmen einer Kommunikationsinitiative der Pranke GmbH stellte ihm Nicole Hegele die folgenden Fragen:

Nicole Hegele:
Herr Plohnke, wir freuen uns sehr, dass Sie sich Zeit für dieses Interview genommen haben. Können Sie uns zuerst etwas über Ihre Verbindung zur Textilbranche erzählen?

Daniel Plohnke:

Die Produkte, für die wir unsere Software-Lösungen entwickeln, können wir jeden Tag anfassen und erleben. Das erzeugt eine besondere Bindung zu unseren Kunden. Diese Emotionalität und der direkte Draht zu den Entscheidern sind das Besondere, was diese Branche ausmacht. Software und Fashion sind meine Leidenschaft.

Nicole Hegele:
Würden Sie uns Ihren größten Erfolg in kurzen Worten beschreiben?

Daniel Plohnke:

Meine Familie.

Nicole Hegele:
Wie stellen Sie sich die Zukunft der Branche vor, insbesondere im Hinblick auf Lieferketten und die Digitalisierung?

Daniel Plohnke:

Alles wird digitaler und automatisierter. Die IT wird immer mehr zu einem wesentlichen Faktor in der Wertschöpfungskette. Daher werden die Unternehmen vorweggehen, die digitale Prozesse und Geschäftsmodelle im Griff haben.

Nicole Hegele:
Wie balancieren Sie Ihre Arbeit mit Familie und Hobbys? Sind Sie eher der Typ 24/7?

Daniel Plohnke:

Wenn es der Job erfordert, gibt es auch 24/7 Phasen, dafür dann auch Phasen mit mehr Zeit für die Familie. Ich halte es nach Karl Heinrich Waggerl: Zeit hat man nur, wenn man sie sich nimmt.

Nicole Hegele:
Wir schätzen Ihre Flexibilität und Zuverlässigkeit. Was würden Sie über uns sagen? Nehmen Sie bitte kein Blatt vor den Mund!

Daniel Plohnke:

Wir schätzen Pranke seit vielen, vielen Jahren als zuverlässigen und auch persönlichen Partner. Die Expertise in der Fashion-Branche ist hervorragend und neue Ideen konnten wir immer gemeinsam angehen.

Nicole Hegele:
Welche Innovation wird Ihrer Meinung nach in Zukunft Markt und Gespräch prägen?

Daniel Plohnke:

Es gibt immer wieder Megatrends, die die Welt verändern sollen. Davon schaffen es aber nur wenige wirklich. Oft sind es viele kleinere Innovationen und die Verbindung davon, die uns voranbringen. Das Thema Künstliche Intelligenz wird meiner Meinung nach unser Leben im privaten wie auch im geschäftlichen deutlich verändern. In den letzten Jahren gab es hier extreme Fortschritte und wir sind noch lange nicht am Ende dieser Innovation.

Nicole Hegele:
Viele große Unternehmen werben mit nachhaltigen Angeboten: Bio-Baumwolle, langlebige Hemden, Secondhand. Sind das wichtige Schritte in Richtung nachhaltige Modebranche oder ist das Greenwashing?

Daniel Plohnke:

Für unsere Zukunft ist Nachhaltigkeit essentiell. Was momentan an der ein oder anderen Stelle noch in den Kinderschuhen steckt, wird unser Handeln in Zukunft prägen. Besonders das Recycling und die Langlebigkeit sind Themen, die ich sehr wichtig finde. Wir müssen nicht alle paar Wochen ein neues T-Shirt tragen.

Nicole Hegele:
Wie gehen Sie in leitender Position mit dem Fachkräftemangel um?

Daniel Plohnke:

Wir haben ein gutes People & Culture Team, welches nicht nur die Rekrutierung, sondern auch die Mitarbeiterbindung verantwortet. Denn in diesen Zeiten ist es wichtig, den Mitarbeitern einen Job mit Purpose und Spaß an der Arbeit zu bieten.

Nicole Hegele:
Was bedeutet Glück für Sie?

Daniel Plohnke:

Die Freiheit, die Dinge zu tun, die mir Spaß machen und mir persönlich wichtig sind.

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PRANKE eBiss®: Only certified!

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Unfortunately, plugins, other customisations and/or extensions to our software have recently been made by external service providers. These companies do not come from Pranke. Their actions are not coordinated with us and this creates complications.

In addition to the legal uncertainties as to whether such services and interventions infringe our rights as the author, e.g. because they involve unauthorised processing of our software, this repeatedly causes technical problems.

The smooth functioning of configuration changes and extensions that are connected to our software via an API and communicate with it requires knowledge of the current Pranke source code of the applications. However, only we and our authorised software partners have this knowledge. In the event of changes to the Pranke software, e.g. in the course of updates, it is also possible that connected development services from third parties in the periphery may no longer be compatible and executable with our software. In particular, we take a critical view of extensions that do not use the documented PRANKE.eBiss API or that were not created with the TypeEditor.

Pranke cannot accept any responsibility for correct functioning at this point. We have no influence on any vulnerabilities and security risks that may arise as a result of the procedure described.

We would therefore strongly recommend that you exercise caution when using third-party services and contact us if you have any doubts.

We will be happy to review your system with you and advise you on how to proceed.

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(Deutsch) Bebilderung GTS

Global Textile Scheme – the standard for automated data exchange from fibre to recycling

Recently, more than sixty well-known textile manufacturers demonstrated their interest in the new Global Textile Scheme (GTS). GTS has been under development for almost a year by a group of ERP system manufacturers, association experts and brand manufacturers. In a webinar lasting a good hour, members of the GTS initiative clarified the standardisation of product data transmission in various use cases. The aim is to establish automated data exchange using a standardised language along the entire textile supply chain.

By standardising information and automating business paperwork, electronic data interchange (EDI) has been saving retailers and suppliers a lot of time and money for almost forty years. The upstream sections of the supply chain, however, have so far been completely excluded from these blessings. The subtle differences in materials such as fabrics, thread, buttons and buckles appeared too diverse and individually defined. Yet it is precisely this diversity that offers enormous potential for efficiency. The greater the manual effort for an exact description, the greater the susceptibility to errors, which in the worst consequence leads to the consumer not finding the product in question.

High data quality along the entire textile chain

GTS now demonstrates that it is possible. With decades of expertise in the textile industry and the corresponding networking behind him, the initiator Andreas Schneider developed the GTS Language together with forward-looking textile manufacturers, fashion brands and major IT producers. This coded catalogue allows users to communicate in their respective mother tongues. In order to digitise this catalogue and thus create the prerequisite for automation, Schneider asked Pranke GmbH to set up a technical infrastructure. Pranke has been established as an EDI expert in the industry for decades. Within a few months, a high-performance platform was created.

Suppliers can use it to track the demand for their products live, so to speak, plan better and produce closer to demand. The customer saves on short-quantity surcharges and delivery times. He benefits from unprecedented data quality because he can import all product-describing master data into his system – if his supplier is connected to GTS.

Schneider and his colleagues were thus able to demonstrate to the webinar participants not only that GTS provides the upstream stage of the textile supply chain, after integration into the existing EDI processes, with the secure, fast, correct and cost-saving building block to digitise and automate the chain from start to finish. In fact, GTS already offers the possibility of documenting the materials used, as is increasingly demanded by politicians with a view to sustainability and the ethical use of resources, and will soon be made indispensable by law.

Meanwhile, the creators of GTS are not sitting back. Andreas Schneider and the other organisers of the webinar, Intex EDV-Software GmbH, Impuls AG, Pohl Softwear GmbH and textdata software gmbh, invite interested companies to join the initiative and participate in its further development.

Experience the Webinar “GTS” on You Tube (in German).
Or read the Peter Büdel USER STORY of exceeding expectations in the GTS eBiss project.

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FAQs

Question

What do I do with a provider ini file?

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eGate is generally to be considered as a closed community network. Therefore, when picking up messages with a SMTP Channel in eBiss, we want to use the Sender identification mandatory. This means that all possible sender eGate email addresses of my trading partners must be known in my eBiss system. This also applies to (third party) poviders who forward EDI messages on behalf of their customers. So if an eGate participant is offered in the participant search not only with a CUSTOMER.INI file but also with a SENDER .INI FILE I have to make sure that the eGate participant of the provider (or SENDER) exists as trading partner in my eBiss. If not, then I need to import the SENDER .INI file.

Example of an eGate participant with provider affiliation:

Name Tnr GLN/UNB-ID Customer .ini File Sender .ini File
Muster GmbH, München (DE) 1234567890 1234567890123 Download Provider

If messages remain unprocessed in your INBOX and with an unknown partner, the reason may be that the validation in the receive channel was not successful.

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Question

Why is it no longer possible to retrieve messages from eGate?

  1. Do you have an eGate customer account? If so, please check the access information by logging in at egate.pranke.com.
  2. Is your account still valid or was it cancelled? In case of doubt, please ask the customer support.
  3. If you have not picked up any messages for a long time, it is possible that some old messages have already been archived (generally messages are automatically archived after approx. 3 months). This means that messages can no longer be retrieved. Log in to your eGate account and identify the archived messages (indicated by the grayed out message IDs) and delete them from your inbox first. After that the retrieval via communication channel should work again.
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Question

In the UNB segment we have to change UNOC+3 to UNOC+4. How does that work?

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As a rule, the containerizer generates the UNB segment. However, if the UNB segment is to be influenced in an Edifact document, the UNB segment must be triggered in the corresponding mapping with a rule record and the desired data element must be operated with a mapping rule. The remaining UNB data elements are then created/operated by the containerizer.

Attention

The default setting of the syntax version number is 3. The EDIFACT containerizer in eBiss checks the syntax version number. If it is greater 3, the date format in the UNB segment will be adapted. In addition, a * is set in UNA segment instead of a space. Finally, you must ensure that the outgoing Edifact document corresponds to the syntax version according to ISO 9735:1998

In the requested case, you need a mapping rule like in this snapshot:

UNB Segment im Mapping

UNB Segment in mapping

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(Deutsch) Nachricht im eGate empfangen, aber nicht im WWS / ERP

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Situation: Eine gesuchte Nachricht habe ich zwar auf eGate in den “fetched messages” gesehen, diese Nachricht ist aber nicht in meinem WWS.

Vorgehen / Abhilfe

Bitte sehen Sie in den Messageboxes des Konverters nach, ob auf der Eingangsseite (Messagebox “from Partner” o.ä.) Nachrichten von unbekannten Partnern zu sehen sind (gelb gefärbt).

Besonders bei neuen Handelspartnern können am Anfang Nachrichten hängen bleiben wegen unterschiedlichster Fehlerquellen.

Eine wichtige Hilfe bei der Fehlereingrenzung ist die Untersuchung eines Tasks bei der hängenden Nachricht. Der Task kann auch den Support unterstützen bei der Fehlerbehebung.

Doppelklicken Sie auf den Anfangsbereich der Zeile mit der gelben Nachricht und öffnen Sie das Register “Tasks”. Die Info -Zeile kann man markieren und mit Copy und Paste in einen beliebigen Text einfügen und versenden

task_auslesen

 

 

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Case studies

CPA.shoefactoryCPA.shoefactory

Migration to new EDI middleware successfully completed

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EDI Outsourcing Provider CPA relies on Pranke

New customer requirements demand optimized solutions. Therefore, CPA SoftwareConsult GmbH, the leading ERP service provider for the shoe industry from Langenfeld, Germany, has switched to the EDI converter eBiss of the Karlsruhe-based Pranke GmbH. After a successful migration, a modular and flexible system is now available for which CPA can program structures and make individual adjustments itself.

Advantages for CPA and its partners

The EDI converter eBiss is used at CPA SoftwareConsult for the EDI communication of partners from the shoe industry with CPA’s own ERP system cpa.ShoeFactory. In addition, a well-known tool manufacturer also uses this solution for the connection to its SAP® system.

CPA’s experience shows that the powerful eBiss system can reliably handle a message count in the mid five-digit range per month.

The modular structure of the eBiss system allows a perfect customization of the message workflow. New customers and suppliers of CPA’s partners can be connected to the system much faster and easier than was possible in the previously used system due to the object-oriented configuration approach. It is also possible to generate and integrate new message formats virtually at the push of a button. It is irrelevant whether these are well-known standard formats, such as EDIFACT or IDoc, or CPA’s own structures. Furthermore, mappings can be better standardized and summarized.

Integration of eBiss as Middleware

Abb. Integration der Pranke eBiss-Middleware bei CPA

CPA partners can also research the transfer status and content of their messages themselves using the standard web front end. “This has already significantly reduced the support effort. But also our partners benefit, as they can do their research whenever they want” notes Jörg Spiegelhoff, Managing Director of CPA SoftwareConsult, happily.

The bottom line is that the benefits of the migration will be positive for CPA and its partners, both in terms of operational processes and in terms of significantly faster and more cost-effective set-up and maintenance, as well as for future EDI projects.

Advantages at a glance

  • New connections less costly
  • Email notification in case of errors
  • Modular, flexible structure
  • Simple handling
  • Stable system
  • Fast troubleshooting
  • Optimized processes
  • Direct database connection
  • Individual programming and integration of functionalities and structures
  • Web frontend for CPA’s partners

Migration facts

  • 100 mappings converted
  • 40 data formats/types combinations created
  • 200 customers/suppliers connected

 

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