What Can AGIIS Do for You? See What It Did for These AGIIS Subscribers!

AGIIS Update

What Can AGIIS Do for You? See What It Did for These AGIIS Subscribers!

By Chris Crutchfield, AgGateway Member Services

If you are a subscriber of the Ag Industry Identification System (AGIIS) who takes full advantage of the database resources, you already understand how integrating with the directory improves your daily operations. But maybe you are an AGIIS subscriber that has yet to fully integrate AGIIS into your daily operations, or you are not a subscriber at all. You may be asking yourself, “What is the value of AGIIS and what can it do for me and my organization?”

First, it is important to understand what AGIIS is and what it is not. AGIIS (pronounced AG-is) is a subscriber-owned database that stores agricultural reference data, or industry common data elements, that are used in electronic communications between trading partners. It houses over 5.3 million uniquely identified entities, a unique combination of a name and address; and it identifies a business, consumer, or simply a location – such as a rail siding or drop point. AGIIS also houses reference data for nearly 170,000 agricultural products that are uploaded and maintained by a product manufacturer.

What do people do with this data? Entities, enumerated with a Global Location Number (GLN), and products, enumerated with a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), are used in all kinds of electronic communications such as Orders, Ship Notices, Invoices, Product Movement Reports, and Price Sheets, just to name a few. These unique identifiers ensure that the industry knows exactly who they are doing business with, at what address, and exactly what product is being referenced.

Now, what AGIIS is not. AGIIS is not a transactional database. No transactions are processed through the database and no pricing information is stored.

Chances are, your organization faces some of the same challenges that other AGIIS subscribers have faced in the past. Challenges with inventory shrink, inefficient processes, human error, and shortage of time, to name a few. So how can having access to these unique identifiers improve your business?

What better way to answer this question than to look at some real-life problems of other ag businesses to see how they use AGIIS, along with other AgGateway resources, to provide the solution. Several AGIIS subscribers have submitted 2-page summary case studies that are now posted on the AgGateway website, here. Each case study provides some company background, outlines the challenges they faced, describes their solution, and explains the benefits and efficiencies gained because of implementation.

Take, for example, Key Cooperative, an AGIIS subscriber based in Roland, Iowa. Key wanted to address challenges with data inaccuracies, inventory shrink and workload inefficiencies. By going electronic and using the unique identifiers in AGIIS, along with AgGateway standard messages, Key was able to cut data entry time by two-thirds, inventory control has doubled, and inventory shrink has dropped.

I encourage you to read over this case study and the others posted on the website. Doing so will give you a better idea of what AGIIS has done for others, and what it can do for you! If you are an AGIIS subscriber and would like to share your own success story, a case study template has been provided on the Case Study home page. Questions with the template, or questions regarding AGIIS subscriptions, can be sent to Member.Services@AgGateway.org, or call us at (866) 251-8618.