ec-bp Bloggers |
Apr 17
2008
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My background is in manufacturing, shipping, logistics and retail; for the last dozen years, I been consulting in EDI integration or directing others in the same for various clients. Currently, I'm hanging my hat at a major retailer, in the supply chain group.
Not long ago, I was asked by a client "why isn't our EDI standardized?" At first I thought this was a rhetorical question, but decided to respond gently as I could see the manager asking me this question was quite serious. "Well, it is; at least the maps are built using published EDI standards."
He went on to inquire why it takes so long for the EDI folks to create a relationship with a customer if all of the maps are standardized (by the way, this manager inherited EDI and had little background in it). My reply was the standard EDI person's response:
- EDI maps are standardized, but everyone has their own version of them
- Customers tend to be less flexible than suppliers in an EDI relationship
- Setup and mapping can be quick; testing with another party can be excruciatingly slow
- Setup can be slow if a lot of programming is involved on the backend
- The larger the organization, the longer the implementation will take
I allowed this to sink in as an eerie silence fell over the room; somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
To break the silence, I said optimistically "However, once the customers are up and running, they rarely have to be touched again unless one of the trading partners wants to make a change."
Informing me to put together an estimate for customers X, Y and Z, the manager shooed me away. Customers X and Y were up in a few days. I think customer Z is still a work in progress...
Many happy 997s,
Mike Kelly, EDI Advocate at www.GotEDI.com
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Subscribe to this comment's feedwritten by J, April 29, 2008
written by Lewis Davis, April 30, 2008
I have had the pleasure of being able to help create a set of documents (810, 850, 855, 856, 832) that is used by the entire flooring industry. The top 3 mills got together back in 1999 and worked together in creating the 'standard'. Today we can setup a new customer using the Flooring B2B standard in less than 30 minutes with no programming required. Now if only all of the big box retailers would work together to create the same type of standard life would be great.
Lewis Davis
written by Donna, June 27, 2008
We are currently using ANSI X12 EDI with our highest standard capability at 4030. Our software is an older Mercator product that was sold to Ascential Software that was then bought by IBM. We are a small EDI shop and we have been doing fine processing 850's inbound and outbound, 810's outbound 855's and 856. Now my challenge. More and more customers are urging us to expand on these transactions and would like for us to use Standard 5010. And surprisingly so, IBM does not support 5010. Well not so surprising. They really are not making lot of money off of this old software but Trading Parters(Mercator) is a great product. So as we begin to look into forging ahead I would like to know if you have any suggestions for good, ease of use, EDI software products.
You assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Most industries have taken the ANSI X12 standards and shot them apart. Healthcare has the HIPAA X12N 'standards' which are interesting. Telecom has some interesting standards developed by their standards organization and then each teleco takes it one step further.
David Frenkel