Two Essent leaders have been named among the top technologists in the promotional products industry.

The inaugural #Tech22 rankings recognize 22 individuals and teams leading technology collaboration in the industry, as ranked by PPAI Technology Summit programming directors.

"These guys searched for the Holy Grail and delivered the cherished goblet for the industry to sip from."

Essent President & CEO Eric Alessi and Vice President of Research Stephen Luisser shared the 10th spot. They led development of Well-Formed™ orders and an Automated Order Processing solution that’s being called the industry’s "Holy Grail."

"These guys searched for the Holy Grail and delivered the cherished goblet for the industry to sip from. That of course being well formed orders. Both are very involved in the architecture and ongoing development of Essent Business Management system, which is used by both distributors and suppliers,” according to the unveiling by PPAI President & CEO Paul Bellantone.

The solution also earned Mr. Luisser the 2016 PPAI Technology Summit Internal Innovator Award.

The "Holy Grail" is an Automated Order Processing solution designed to eliminate supply chain friction and the steep costs of order processing.

It uses the Essent Product Configuration Engine to generate electronic, custom Well-Formed orders that are complete and error-free -- and therefore ready for automated processing without manual intervention.

The Well-Formed order is then transmitted automatically and in real-time from one trading partner to the other via the Essent OrderTrax® Network. OrderTrax is the promotional products industry-standard electronic data interchange for trading partner integration.

The result is a complete, accurate order completely processed and ready for the production floor with no time- and labor-intensive manual intervention required.