Geneva, 16 April 1999
ECE/TRADE/99/7
UN/EDIFACT
TOWARDS SIMPLE ELECTRONIC BUSINESS
UN/EDIFACT
Working Group (EWG) meet at Atlanta, USA
Around 180 electronic business
experts from national, regional and international organizations
and private companies met recently in Atlanta (USA) to hold the
UN/EDIFACT Working Group six-monthly global coordination working
session. One of the major findings of the meeting was that
UN/EDIFACT was being used increasingly in areas such as health,
financing, insurance, travel and tourism. A theme of the meeting
was for UN/EDIFACT to enable business to exchange data in a
simpler and more uniform manner. Additionally, a new business
area identified for UN/EDIFACT was Environmental Management and
Safety.
To serve electronic business
users, the EWG meeting is the place where the essential tools in
the form of messages, data elements and codes for automated
electronic business are developed. These tools form the
foundation of business-to-business electronic commerce, are used
in a wide range of industries from automotive to retail, and have
been implemented by hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide.
EWG decided at Atlanta to
develop a simpler approach to the implementation of UN/EDIFACT
messages based on modelling, resulting in simplification of
business processes, which should especially enable small and
medium-sized companies worldwide to reap the benefits of the
usage of EDI.
The next meeting of the
UN/EDIFACT Working Group will take place from 20 to
24 September 1999 in Canberra, Australia. Further
information can be found at www.unece.org/cefact EWG home page
and on the Tradegate ECA website at www.tradegate.org.au
HIGHLIGHTS
FROM ATLANTA
Environmental Management and
Safety work group established: To respond to an increasing
need for an international EDI standard in support of the
constantly growing international electronic exchange in
environmental data, EWG established the Management and Safety
group. For more than five years, the US Environmental Protection
Agency (USEPA) and the Environmental Protection Administration in
Taipei (EPAT) have developed and promoted the electronic exchange
of environmental and safety data such as monitoring air
pollution. Realizing economies of scale, for government,
environmental agencies and business by facilitating the use of
environmental data collection and automation of cross-border
exchange of import/export transactions leads to taking advantage
of the international UN/EDIFACT standard for international
environmental data exchange.
Simpl-EDI work programme
established: Upon request by its parent body, UN/CEFACT, to
discuss the recommendations of the Simpl-EDI and web-based EDI
ad-hoc group (SIMAC), EWG concluded that Simpl-EDI work will be
included in its work programme. As Simpl-EDI should be considered
independently from the EDI technique and as business process
modelling is a prerequisite for simplification and harmonization,
the Implementation and Harmonization Sub Working Group of EWG
will coordinate and focus the work, most of which will take place
within the Development sub-working groups.
Object Oriented-EDI work
group established: In response to the myriad of questions put
forward by many EDI users on future EDI trends, EWG established
the Object Oriented-edi (OO-edi) sub-working group. The OO-edi
concept represents one of today=s most advanced research initiatives. Unified
Modelling Language, object technology and concepts are now
sufficiently advanced to initiate concept validation and
information dissemination among the EDI user community.
Joint Technical Assessment:
The experts processed 1,648 maintenance requests to the
UN/EDIFACT standard. The review and processing cycle of
maintenance requests is reduced from 12 to 5 months. This shows
the responsiveness of EWG to the business community needs. The
group fully implemented version 4 of the syntax with the
production of the D.99B Directory.
BUSINESS DOMAINS
HIGHLIGHTS
Purchasing: The Purchasing group
covers party information and the trade messages from the purchase
order to the invoice and more and more sectors, industries and
countries now implement its messages. New developments are
undertaken for infrastructure conditions, used by the energy
supplier industry. This shows the involvement of new industry
sectors within EWG.
Transport: In July 1999, the
Port of Yokohama (Japan) will host the International Transport
Implementation Guidelines Group to complete recommendations for
the harmonisation of implementation guidelines of UN/EDIFACT
Transport messages to be used in global transport.
Finance: The Finance sector
agreed to change its strategic goal to support the end-to-end
financial process with a common business model. Therefore, the
group will further promote STP (Straight-Through-Processing) in
transactions entrusted to the financial community by their
corporate customer. New financial products based on STP features
will also be developed and offered to the market in the near
future.
Accounting, Auditing,
Registration & Financial Information Services: Three new
messages reached UNSM status, BUSCRD Business Credit Report,
LEDGER Accounting Ledger and REGENT Registration of Enterprise.
Healthcare: UN/EDIFACT use
continued to expand rapidly in the Health sector within several
countries for administrative, financial and clinical information
exchange. Use of electronic business in the Health sector is seen
to be vital in these countries to improve patents service,
timeliness and quality of the date being exchanged.
Material Management and Product
Quality Data: Material Management and Product Quality Data merged
their efforts towards the development of high-level non-financial
trade EDI messages. Coordination between business and industry
data is achieved by liaising with the ISO 10303 STEP standard
group through GOSET, the French association active in STEP.
Insurance: The insurance experts
agreed to revert to their organization in Canada, Europe and the
United States to discuss joint efforts in the use of XML and
Internet in support of their business requirements and UN/EDIFACT
will provide the common place for this cooperation.
Travel, Tourism and Leisure:
Interactive messages involved in travel reservations, including
schedules, availability, rates and other information are now
approved. These messages are being implemented within the travel
and tourism industry.
EDI associated Objects: The
group provides technical guidelines to support the transmission
or retrieval of objects that cannot be transmitted within
UN/EDIFACT messages. Examples of these objects could be CAD/CAM
files, images and software programs. The group is currently
compiling the recommendations to be finalized at the Canberra
meeting.
For further information, please
contact:
Mr. Jean Kubler
UN/CEFACT
Trade Division
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UN/ECE)
Palais des Nations, Office 446
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Tel: (+41 22) 917 27 74 / 27 73
Fax: (+41 22) 917 00 37
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.unece.org/cefact