Case Study: J-COM Inc.

J-COM Inc. is an electronic document service provider that acts as a middleman between suppliers and assembly plants located all over North America. Between J-COM’s customers and their trading partners, there are more than five thousand locations in North America alone. Due to the complexity of this situation, a visual tool was needed.

GIStance first plotted all of the supplier and assembly plant location points on a digital map at the zip code level. Key attributes were added to each point such as the location names, site addresses, contact names, telephone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses, supplier codes, and DUNS numbers. Location specific information was also added to signify pool points or consolidators.

The end result was that J-COM was able to get a management tool that could deliver geographical activity patterns, as well as provide easy access to information needed for daily data entry. The GIStance dynamic map called “DynaGIS” allows the user to track the flows of parts on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to highlight shipment and seasonal patterns.

“The DynaGIS package gave us a visual representation of our business and allowed us to detect important trends. We were also able to take down all of the paper pinned to the walls and use the map as the one information source for all of our operators. A digital map can significantly boost a company’s productivity by consolidating important data into a tool that requires little effort to use and maintain.”

Mike Benning

Operations Manager

J-COM Inc.