PCATS and 1SYNC Announce Successful Conclusion of PCATS Gateway Pilot

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: John Hervey                

Company: Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS)

E-mail: [email protected]        

Phone:         (703) 836-1630Internet: www.pcats.org           

Fax:              (703) 836-7964

PCATS and 1SYNC Announce Successful Conclusion of PCATS Gateway Pilot 

ALEXANDRIA, VA – May 1, 2007 - – The Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS) and 1SYNC today announced that the PCATS Gateway – Powered by 1SYNC – Sponsored by NACS, Pilot Program, which began in February 2007 was successfully concluded on April 13, 2007.   Results of the pilot were announced today at a workshop at NACStech 2007, held at the Opryland Hotel, Nashville, TN. The PCATS Gateway is a secure communications pipeline enabling a retailer’s supplier trading partners to send electronic item price and promotion documents in the PCATS-NAXML format. 

PCATS-NAXML has been designed by the PCATS EB2B Retail Working Group to be a low cost effective and simple industry format for electronic business documents. The workshop was moderated by Kraig Adams, The Coca-Cola Company and included Julie McGill, 1SYNC; Priscilla Jones, Town and Country Food Stores; Jim Mock, Panhandle Popcorn; Angela Clinard, Clinard Oil; and Gina Tomassi, Frito-Lay (PepsiCo) as panel participants.   

Julie McGill announced that during the pilot there were five retailer participants ranging in store count from 6 stores to over 1,500 and 6 supplier participants including 3 very large suppliers and 3 regional or local suppliers.  Retailer participants included Clinard Oil, EZ-Mart, Nice N’Easy, The Pantry, and Town and Country Food Stores. Supplier participants included The Coca-Cola Company, Frito-Lay, Cadbury Beverages, Panhandle Popcorn, Artic Glacier Ice, and a major dairy company. 

CMi Solutions and PDI were the solution providers who aided their retailer customers in making the connection and consuming the transmitted data. Commenting on the pilot program Priscilla Jones, Marketing Analyst/Price Book Coordinator at Town and Country Food Stores, stated, “By participating in the pilot program we were able to prove to ourselves that we could streamline pricebook maintenance and that the same benefits that larger and big box retailers have achieved through electronic messaging and data synchronization could be ours also.”  

Angela Clinard, Director of Merchandising & Sales at Clinard Oil stated that, “The pilot program showed us that the automation of pricebook processes will create a more efficient and accurate supply chain for us and that it will help reduce our workload in the home office.”  She added that, “We expect to see a significant reduction in data entry errors and in invoice pricing discrepancies as we move forward with more suppliers.” 

Belinda Gaona, MIS - EDI/Pricebook Analyst at E-ZMart, stated “The pilot was a success. With the exception of some very minor typographical errors coming from the suppliers, every test performed exactly as it should.   The positive to this is it demonstrates exactly how a real-life mistake could be easily fixed with little to no manual input from us. It is my belief that it will help to simply and speed up our business processes with better accuracy.” 

Matt Paduano, VP Information, Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, Inc, stated that, “The 1SYNC Pilot Project was something that the industry has been clamoring to be developed for years and is something that is long overdue for the convenience store industry.  This process will allow the smallest retailer and the smallest vendors to share electronic data without a huge investment in hardware, software, or technical expertise.  The pilot went well with the two vendors that we tested with and it integrated into our system seamlessly.”   

Jim Mock, president of Panhandle Popcorn, stated that, “Panhandle Popcorn Co. is a small business and I was uncertain as to the complexity of the pilot program.  However, I found the whole process to be informative and not as challenging as expected. This is the next best thing to keying in my information directly into my retailer’s system.  For a small, regional company such as ours, the Gateway proved to be very easy to use.”  He added, “We originally thought it would be a long time before we could participate in electronic data synchronization but the Gateway showed us that we can do it today.”    

Gina Tomassi,  of Frito-Lay stated that, “Suppliers of all sizes now have a viable solution which sends pricebook information to their trading partners quicker and more accurately than ever before and we believe it will lower costs because we won’t be required to build expensive solutions that have to be customized for each of our trading partners.” Kraig Adams, xxxxx of The Coca-Cola Company, commented that, “The results of the pilot confirmed that the electronic transmission of the PCATS-NAXML price and promotion data from the participating suppliers was successfully processed through the PCATS Gateway.  It further proved that PCATS-NAXML messages received by the retailers could be successfully processed appropriately within their pricebook and that retailers can utilize a single petroleum /convenience industry standard message (PCATS-NAXML).” 

“Our objective for the pilot was to assist retailers and suppliers in the convenience and petroleum retailing channel in achieving supply chain benefits associated with electronic price book synchronization, and the best way to achieve that was by partnering with PCATS with the sponsorship of NACS,” said 1SYNC CEO Bob Noe, “we are extremely pleased that the positive results of the pilot confirm our expectations that the Gateway is a cost-effective method for convenience/petroleum retailers to exchange electronic data with their suppliers.” He concluded, “We believe that the PCATS Gateway will expand and accelerate the commercial value of data synchronization in the petroleum/convenience channel.” 

John Hervey, Executive Director of PCATS stated that, “PCATS is excited that the Pilot program achieved all of its objectives.  We look forward to working with 1SYNC in the future and expect to have a rollout announcement for the industry soon.” 

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About the Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS): The Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS) was founded in September 2003 to continue the development and maintenance for standards work initiated under the National Association of Convenience Stores’ (NACS) Technology Standards project. With over 160 retailer and supplier members, the group’s membership represents more than 22,000 convenience stores. Membership is open to any petroleum marketer, convenience store owner/operator, other retail channels, or any of their suppliers or vendors. For additional information regarding PCATS, please visit www.pcats.org  

About 1SYNC1SYNC is a newly-formed subsidiary of GS1 US™. 1SYNC offers a range of data synchronization services that eliminate costly data errors, increase supply chain efficiencies, and promote the advancement of next-generation technologies, such as the Electronic Product Code™ (EPC). GS1 US is a not-for-profit member organization of GS1 and is dedicated to the development and implementation of standards-based, global supply chain solutions.1SYNC is headquartered in Lawrenceville, New Jersey with offices in the U.S., Brazil, and United Kingdom. Visit www.1SYNC.org for more information.