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As information technologies are integrated deeper into corporate structures, departments that historically have been operated manually are pursuing ways to adapt to these changes. Supply chain, materials management, and accounting departments have all identified ways that IT can streamline processes, increase communication, and reduce costs through efficiency. Based on the experience gained from previous implementations, sales order automation has also been conceived. Sales order automation process connects customers and suppliers via a computerized interface, allowing customers to select and specify their preferred orders. It addresses planning, sourcing, manufacturing and delivering which are the four processes required to bring an order initiation to termination (Quinn, 1997). Sales order automation system which can be clustered under electronic data interchange (EDI), directly links electronically processed customer orders to order management for quality control, to accounting for billing, to inventory for product supply, and to manufacturing for production. Electronic back-end automation systems can connect physical processes to information-based integration throughout the operations (Zhu, 2004).
Traditionally, sales orders have been paper and process intensive. Customers would initiate their orders via telephone or fax through customer service before orders are initiated. Traditional customer services would edit, evaluate, and correct orders for quality purposes before order data is processed and distributed among various departments along the supply chain. Each department in the cycle would require a copy of the processed order and often a secondary level of quality control. Although quality of the order would be assured through number of processes, workload placed upon the organizations would require considerable amount of resource. As mentioned before, automation has been successfully implemented in various departments and results have been proven to be beneficial, but automation may not always be the right answer. Thus, it is important to clarify if sales order automation is always worth the cost of interface implementation or whether traditional sales order process can benefit its customer friendliness and flexibility, and how companies can decide which route to follow in giving such decisions.
As mentioned in the literature, 56% of commercial buyers are using electronic data interchange (EDI) as an e-commerce tool (Vigoroso, 1999) and automation provides clear advantages for suppliers in increasing performance and organized efficiency (Mackay & Rosier, 1996; Hill et al., 2009). Mackay and Rosier (1996) identified an increase in data accuracy, improved productivity, and increased speed of information distribution due to use of automation. A study by Leonard and Davis also showed that use of EDI throughout sales processes increased productivity because of the focus on quality, lead times, and inventory management (Leonard & Davis, 2006). It is also emphasized that benefits support suppliers to push for automation at the front-end and back-end.