Stelrad Radiators- A Digital Transformation Through EDI

EDI has become a critical part of Stelrad’s business. Automating order processing has allowed the team to onboard more customers via EDI
without increasing headcount. Customer Services can now focus on meaningful engagement instead of repetitive data entry. Even during peak
periods, the process remains smooth and manageable.

Stelrad has been a leading supplier of radiators since 1936 and is now the largest supplier of radiators in the UK and Ireland. It has developed into a ‘one stop shop’ for all things radiators, offering standard steel panel radiators, premium panel radiators, decorative and designer radiators, safety radiator ranges as well as electric options – there’s a range and design for every application. With more than two and a half million radiators delivered last year, Stelrad continues to go from strength to strength offering a unique combination of choice, quality, reliability and availability, with a sector leading 99% delivery within 72 hours service anywhere in the UK and Ireland from its state of the art National Distribution Centre in South Yorkshire, which houses up to 360,000 radiators at any one time, waiting to be ordered and delivered to more than 2,000 outlets around the country.

As the UK’s leading manufacturer of high-performance radiators, Stelrad faced the mounting challenge of manually processing large volumes of customer orders—a time consuming, error-prone task. By partnering with TrueCommerce, Stelrad was able to implement a seamless, touchless EDI solution that has transformed its order-to-cash process, improved data accuracy, and scaled operations without increasing headcount.

Like many manufacturers, Stelrad faced the operational burden of manually processing a high volume of customer orders. This approach was not only time consuming but also prone to human error, with each input box increasing the risk- leading to inefficiencies across the order-to-cash process and potential delays, with customers missing cut-off times.

Many of Stelrad’s customers already used TrueCommerce, making it a natural fit. With SAP as Stelrad’s ERP, a middleware layer was implemented to manage data flow and provide real-time monitoring. This ensures proactive alerts for missing orders or invoice failures significantly enhancing visibility and control.

Looking Ahead

Stelrad’s EDI capability continues to grow in scale and sophistication, allowing for rapid onboarding of new customers and sustained
performance improvements. Their advice to other organisations? Ryan comments: “Implementing EDI should be one of the easiest decisions a scaling business makes. The benefits of greater efficiency, accuracy, reduced manual effort, and improved scalability are immediate. Every manual entry field is a potential point of failure; EDI eliminates that risk.”