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