TAKING THE LEAD
What is EDI, and Why is it Used by fcB2B?
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Lewis Davis Senior Director of Technology and Research
hat is EDI or Electronic Data Interchange? Let us start with a bit of history; in the early 1970s, companies looked at ways to communicate business documents in an automated fashion. Back then, communication was done using modems (precursor to today’s routers). Companies like Montgomery Ward and Kmart defined their format to send purchase orders to their suppliers. This was great if you were the sender, but each supplier had to support multiple formats to process PO’s. This was very inefficient and costly for the suppliers. The industry came together and requested help from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and after a period, EDI was born. When the fcB2B standards were created, EDI was well established and heavily used within the supply chain. This made the decision on the format very easy. The EDI documents are somewhat cryptic if you are not familiar with the format. Each document has a number that identifies what information is contained within. For example, the 810 is an electronic invoice, whereas the 832 is a product catalog. Each document is broken down into segments and elements. The elements define what data is stored, and qualifiers are used to identify the data further. For example, X12 EDI is used throughout the United States, whereas EDIFACT is the standard used everywhere in the world. Although they differ in context and document name, a Purchase Order is an 850 in X12 and ORDERS in EDIFACT; both still use segments, elements, and qualifiers to identify the sent data. I know this is techno-speak, but it helps to explain why EDI was used to create the fcB2B standard. Things move much faster in today’s IT and life, and we have gotten accustomed to instant access and instant delivery. One question I get is why are we still using EDI to send these critical documents; why not a newer technology or web services to request a catalog and receive the data? One reason is the volume of data in a complete catalog from some suppliers, although small compared to some
The EDI documents are somewhat cryptic if you are not familiar with the format. Each document has a number that identifies what information is contained within.
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