How Leitner Ropeways made its SAP ready for international EDI and E-Invoicing requirements

At the very core of every supply chain interaction with suppliers and customers alike is the exchange of electronic data. Modern supply chains do not rely on paper or PDF documents, but exchange supply chain related information using electronic data interchange (EDI). In addition, more and more governments mandate the use of electronic invoicing using continuous transaction control (CTC) systems. Italy, Hungary, and soon France and Poland are examples of such countries.

As the world’s leading and most significant manufacturers of ropeway systems, Leitner Ropeways must be able to cope with these challenges.

To address the ever-growing demand for electronic data interchange and e-invoicing, Leitner builds on EDI as a Service. Thanks to this approach, Leitner’s business integration capabilities with suppliers and governmental institutions alike are deeply integrated with SAP ERP using an API connection.

Using a single connection to a dedicated cloud-based EDI as a Service provider, Leitner can meet various global message exchange requirements. The API connection constantly syncs the status of messages on the provider’s side with the status of IDocs in SAP, thus giving the business departments full visibility of the entire process flow. In case of errors the business departments can help themselves directly in SAP, without the need to reach out to IT departments.

Using the EDI as a Service approach Leitner Ropeways is able to close the chasm which often exists between ERP and EDI solutions. Instead Leitner employs a full integrated solution, where ERP and EDI become one integrated and homogenous solution.