eC-BP.org - EDI on LinkedIn

EDI on LinkedIn

Written by Ken Kinlock

Thursday, 06 November 2008

ec-bp.org - ec-bp - E-Commerce Best Practices and EDI on LinkedIn is a brand new concept. How is it doing?

I took a look at the discussion topics that have appeared since inception. Continuing my last month discussion on who should own EDI, I tried to evaluate each discussion as to whether it is a business issue or a technical issue.

#1 Is the EDI industry as boring as it seems?
This is neither a business issue or a technical issue, it is a HUMAN issue.
"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" maybe flying a jet plane is boring to some people. Everything about EDI can be VERY interesting.

#2 EDI Content Validation - Simplifying Compliance
Scott Gibson, Director Supply Chain Systems at Navy Exchange asked if anyone had invested in tools to compare the content of EDI transactions to validate the accuracy of the information that the trading partners are sending. His ERP solution lacks the sophistication of doing this at an ERP level and instead each module (merchandising, store solution and distribution system) has different business rules and validation which forces him to work errors in 3 or more different databases. He is looking at his current VAN provider's software and was wondering if others are doing the same and how successful it had/hadn't been.

Craig Dunham, EDI Coordinator/System Analyst at Big 5 Sporting Goods provided a couple of good technical answers. His problems (business issue) occur when a vendor ships an incomplete order. He is ordering 30 products and 20 of them come from warehouse A and 10 from warehouse B. Since that's two shipments, he should receive 2 ASNs - and BOTH would fail that comparison, as they don't match the PO. Next he pointed out more business issues that create errors. In simplicity, buyer does not update a PO, so, of course, the ASN fails.

Scotts difficulties appear to be the result of a change not flowing through merchandising, store solutions and the distribution system. This all goes back to my "ownership" thing from last month. If the ERP has holes in it, who owns that????? ERP functionality is determined by the business, IT just operates/facilitates but does not design. Is it now the role of EDI to catch?????

#3 Jason Sekkes, E-Commerce Manager at AmeriGas Propane, asked what EDI metrics are other organizations using? He tracks number of transactions and dollars but wants to know if there is anything else that people are using?
There were several replies....but nobody gave my answer: I just want to see exceptions.

#4 What is the most important technology that will impact your EDI system in 2009? Didn't get a lot of responses. One was a new ERP system and introducing XML. Hey! That stuff has been around a decade! I would like to see something revolutionary like what AS2 was supposed to be before it got overly complicated by both the technical people AND the business people (and NO I won't touch the issue of certification of AS2).

I had some great feedback from Chris Hodges on my last posting
"Just read your article “Is EDI Owned by IT or the Business”. I based my educational goals and my degree program at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) on the very points you made in this article. I was pursuing a degree in Information Technology while working as an entry level EDI Coordinator at Xerox. I soon learned that EDI is very confusing to business people. They completely viewed it as a technical role. I am not a true techie who thinks in code. I’m a regular Joe who “fell” into the EDI job. I knew how to use a keyboard and look at data on a screen so I would consider that non-techie. With this understanding, I formed a degree program at RIT that mixed the technical classes with the business courses. I had to work through the bureaucracy of the college of business and the college of info tech to allow me to do this. My main argument was exactly what you wrote in this article. I wanted to not only expand my technical expertise but also understand the business aspects of what I was programming. More so, I wanted to be able to communicate the power of EDI in business terms. I have found this talent to be the staple of my 11 year career in EDI.

Ken Kinlock
		About the author:
		Ken is currently an electronic commerce consultant for U.S. companies doing business in France. He is also involved in an Internet E-Business which markets travel and entertainment services to the North American market. Ken was the Lead Electronic Commerce Analyst for Whirlpool Corporation. He was instrumental in the rollout of a supply chain electronic commerce program to suppliers. This program included an Internet electronic commerce interface with suppliers. Ken has many years experience in EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) both as an entrepreneur and working for large, successful companies, including General Electric. He has experience in the area of interactive on-line billing and payment services and formerly operated an EDI implementation, consulting and service company. He is widely regarded as an expert in the field of electronic commerce and has presented this topic at many seminars. He holds an MBA degree from the University of New Haven and a BA degree from St. Lawrence University. His background and training was in the corporate financial area of the General Electric Company. One of his work assignments was to “think out of the box” and develop strategies for cost cutting. EDI appeared to have a huge potential. At this point, EDI was in its infancy and he participated in both internal strategization and external development (as a member of DISA, the Data Interchange Standards Association). As EDI matured and was implemented, he managed the project. When EDI rollout was outsourced, he formed his own company to conduct training and implementation. During this time, he organized the first EDI trading partner conference in the industry. Next he organized an EDI service bureau, which had several implementation projects. He participated in some pioneering efforts at on-line billing/payment, which were done over fiber-optic CATV rather than the Web.

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