Jennmar™ was founded in 1922 as Frank Calandra Inc., and made a commitment to producing quality products for the mining and tunneling industry that ensure safety and increase production levels. Jennmar is based in Pittsburgh, PA and has experienced substantial growth in the past 15 years, establishing several manufacturing facilities worldwide. While mainly producing roof and ground control products, Jennmar also manufactures steel products for non-mining industries.

 

As Jennmar continued to grow and gain clients, the need for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was imminent. Ted Benham, the Vice President of IT at Jennmar, stated that "Our customers were beginning to request EDI, but we had a small IT staff that didn't have the expertise. We wanted to be able to accommodate and meet the expectations of our clients." Jennmar looked to outsourcing to meet their EDI needs, and found Innovate E-Commerce to be a perfect match.

 

"Innovate was a local company with a good reputation," stated Benham. "They offered us a variety of electronic business formats such as X12 and XML. Those formats are complex and involved, but we knew that expertise in that field was a standard business practice for Innovate."

After partnering with Innovate E-Commerce, Jennmar not only met their customers' expectations, but also reduced internal administration costs and data entry, which directly benefited the manufacturing process. With no waiting time for data to be translated and processed, operations were never put on hold, and production time increased.

 

Jennmar also benefitted from the excellent customer service that Innovate E-Commerce provides. "With a large outsourcing company, our small projects would probably take 6 months to complete," Ted Benham commented. "Innovate not only meets our project schedule, they jump on new projects right away. Innovate is big enough to offer expertise and a superb infrastructure, but small enough that they can take on our specialized cases with truly personalized service."

 

For Ted Benham, the exemplary customer service is the best part of working with Innovate E-Commerce: "We may 'outsource' to Innovate, but we really consider them part of our staff - our own personal staff of EDI experts. If we have a question, we simply call them and get it answered. We can pay for the things we need, and don't have to pay for things we don't, like other companies. As technology advances, we don't have to worry about re-training employees or integrating new applications. We let Innovate know what we want, and they take care of the details. It's an excellent partnership and relationship - we consider Innovate part of our staff."

"Innovate E-Commerce and Jennmar have a great, long-term relationship", stated Karen Puchalsky, President of Innovate E-Commerce. "We are delighted that we have played a part in helping Jennmar meet their customers' EDI demands."