Real results from real customers
Manufacturers, distributors, food producers, and steel processors have trusted Foundational to run their B2B integration operations. Here’s what they experienced.
Herr’s Foods
Snack Food Manufacturing • Nottingham, Pennsylvania • Family-owned since 1946
Herr’s is one of the largest privately owned snack food companies in the United States, producing over 300 products including potato chips, pretzels, popcorn, and cheese snacks. Founded in 1946 by Jim Herr in Pennsylvania, the company has expanded distribution across the US and Canada. As a growth-focused family business, the management team at Herr’s is relentless about operational efficiency — and EDI is no exception.
Herr’s had built an on-premise EDI translator integrated with their custom ERP, but the cost of maintaining transaction maps and keeping pace with shifting trading partner requirements made the system expensive to operate. Expansion was effectively blocked — the overhead of adding new partners couldn’t be justified, leaving EDI limited to only the highest-volume relationships at a time when the business needed to grow its partner network.
Herr’s migrated their existing 24 trading partner relationships to Foundational’s Managed EDI Service. Foundational became their EDI department — handling all map development, partner onboarding, compliance monitoring, and ongoing maintenance without requiring Herr’s to maintain in-house EDI staff or software. The fixed-cost, fully managed model made it economically viable to expand the partner network as the business grew.
Herr’s trading partner network has grown from 24 to 130 active connections — growth that would not have been feasible under the previous on-premise model. The Managed EDI Service has scaled seamlessly alongside the business, enabling Herr’s to meet the e-business requirements of an expanding customer base without adding internal EDI overhead.
McNeilus Steel
Steel Distributor & Processor • Dodge Center, MN • Fargo, ND • Fond du Lac, WI • Morristown & Morrison, TN • Family-owned since 1948
McNeilus Steel is a full-line steel distributor and processor serving the upper Midwest since 1948. With over 450 employees and five warehouse locations, McNeilus offers an extensive product range — hot roll and cold finish bar, tube, pipe, sheet, plate, stainless, aluminum, rebar, and more — along with metal fabrication services including laser and plasma cutting, shot blasting, rolling, and robotic beveling. Material quality, responsive service, and on-time delivery are the foundation of their customer relationships.
McNeilus had integrated their metals industry ERP system with an EDI translator using outside consultants. While functional, the ongoing cost of maintenance and staffing to manage the system was significant. Expanding EDI to additional trading partners couldn’t be cost-justified, leaving the implementation limited to only the highest-volume relationships and creating a ceiling on the operational benefits EDI could deliver.
Foundational’s Managed EDI Service integrates directly with McNeilus’s ERP environment, providing seamless connectivity to any EDI-enabled trading partner at a fraction of the cost of traditional EDI. Foundational’s deep expertise in steel processing EDI — including industry-specific transaction flows, vendor managed inventory, and materials receiving workflows — made the integration both technically precise and immediately impactful. McNeilus no longer maintains in-house EDI expertise; Foundational acts as their EDI department.
McNeilus expanded the scope of their EDI implementation by 500%. The impact was felt across three core business functions: purchasing, receiving, and sales order processing — each dramatically streamlined by connecting the ERP directly to trading partner data flows.
Eliminated manual inventory counting and buy-report creation. Supplier-facing EDI now enables vendor managed inventory — suppliers monitor stock levels directly and create fulfillment orders against pre-set thresholds. Inventory turns quickly with no manual intervention.
The majority of inventory receipts are now processed via EDI. When a mill ships material, the advance ship notice flows directly into the ERP — the warehouse team simply scans a barcode label on arrival. No manual entry, no room for error.
Customers who send orders via EDI eliminate manual and double-entry entirely. Sales reps review rather than re-key orders, freeing time to generate new business and service existing accounts.
“Foundational has proven to be a valuable partner. Their understanding of how EDI is used in the metals processing industry has enabled us to enjoy the benefits of e-business across our organization. Inventory turns have improved, our receiving process is efficient with minimal errors, and many orders are now received via EDI so the order entry process requires minimal human intervention.”
— Mark Blaisdell, McNeilus Steel
DF Stauffer Biscuit Company
Cookie & Snack Manufacturing • York, Pennsylvania • Founded 1871
DF Stauffer Biscuit Company is a premium cookie and snack manufacturer with roots going back to 1871 in York, Pennsylvania. Best known for their Original Animal Crackers, Stauffer’s produces a wide range of cookies and crackers distributed nationally. The brand operates under Meiji America and is synonymous with wholesome, nostalgic American baking.
Managing EDI in-house was consuming internal resources, compliance chargebacks were accumulating, and the team lacked confidence that partner requirements were being met consistently.
Foundational took over full EDI operations — all mapping, partner communication, compliance monitoring, and incident response — allowing Stauffer’s internal team to refocus on the business.
Customer chargebacks dropped by as much as 85%. The team regained hours of processing time per week, and internal ERP integration improved significantly across the organization.
“As a result of outsourcing our EDI processing to Foundational we have achieved a higher level of internal integration, saved hours of processing time, and reduced customer chargebacks by as much as 85 percent.”
— Lloyd Myers, DF Stauffer Biscuit Company
Availability
Nucor Corporation
Steel Manufacturing • National
As one of the largest steel producers in the US, Nucor required an EDI and integration partner capable of handling high transaction volumes with minimal latency and maximum reliability — while responding rapidly to changing mapping needs.
Foundational provides fully managed EDI integration for Nucor, covering trading partner onboarding, map development and maintenance, communication protocol management, and 24/7 monitoring of all transaction flows.
Nucor has experienced consistently high platform availability, rapid turnaround on new mapping configurations, and reliable throughput across all trading partner connections — cited directly by Nucor’s team.
“Foundational has demonstrated very quick turnaround times on building mapping configurations and communication setups. Their systems have shown very high availability, as well as reliable and consistent throughput.”
— Scott Reinhardt, Nucor Corporation
Have a specific industry or scenario in mind?
We work with manufacturers, distributors, logistics providers, food producers, and steel processors across the US. Talk to us about your specific integration challenges — we’re happy to share relevant examples from our 25+ year history.