Dalton—Lewis Davis, senior director of technology and research, World Floor Covering Association (WFCA), said the first two companies to define and complete the certification process of the Version 3.0 standards of the The Floor Covering Business to Business (fcB2B) program are The Dixie Group (TDG) and RFMS.
“fcB2B is pleased to recognize and congratulate the industry frontrunners, TDG and RFMS, on embracing the higher standards of sophistication of this technology by completing our recent certification process, an important innovation milestone not only for each company but also for the industry at large,” Davis said. “fcB2B has worked hard to define certification through the years. I am pleased that the group came together last year and set the expectation for the rest of the industry to define and approve a certification process. Version 3.0 of the fcB2B standards will solve some of the issues that retailers were having with processing some of the documents, eliminating some of the ambiguity in the original versions of the standard. That, along with certification, will make the sharing of business-critical documents better for the industry.”
Robert Jones, director of MIS, The Dixie Group, added, “The Dixie Group Inc. is committed at all levels to our customer’s satisfaction and is proud to participate with the WFCA and fcB2B in bringing a new standard to electronic data sharing between suppliers and customers. We continue to invest our resources to increase customer satisfaction and are fortunate to now be certified to the latest standards from fcB2B, which will provide further advancement in our customer support. We would like to recognize Jeff Kirkpatrick in his role of EDI lead developer in bringing this challenge to its successful completion.”
Cheryl Allen, director of e-commerce, RFMS, added, “RFMS is proud to have worked with the fcB2B on this project from the earliest stages. We are honored to be at the forefront of software partners achieving this distinction of fcB2B Certified. Our goal has always been to make operational processes more efficient for our clients, aiding them in their success. RFMS continues to be committed to improving the user experience with B2B e-commerce, as well as our relationships with the many vendors that are coming together to make this certification process possible.”
Davis said both companies tested multiple scenarios entailing product catalogs, purchase orders and purchase order acknowledgments, ship notices (ASN) and invoices validating that suppliers are complying with the Version 3.0 standards and the software providers are correctly processing those documents. “The goal is to make the fcB2B process consistent without varying interpretations of how the standards should be implemented,” he said.