🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <phrE5x9uD.2yD@netcom.com>, Paul Rubin <phr@netcom.com> wrote:

>The thing is, EDI just doesn't benefit smaller companies that much.
>The people who really gain from EDI are the ones who have to deal with
>a -lot- of different trading partners, and that means the "mob bosses".
>The smaller companies who trade with them just consider EDI to be a
>nuisance and wouldn't bother with it even it were free, if their
>larger partners didn't insist on it.

Ah, but it should be benificial to small companies.  I've been rethinking
this a bit.  EDI is costly and unfriendly: the big company tells the small
company that it should send its invoices via EDI in x12 standard no. 950 (or
whatever).  This has no meaning and only attains meaning after the small
company invests lots of money in software and services.  Even once the small
company is prepared to understand x12 950, it still has to communicate with
the large company for the purpose of pinning down exact details (the
interpretation and necessity of various fields, common item codes, etc.).

Now what do the companies really want?  The big company wants all of its
received data in a standard machine readable format to lower its data
processing costs.  The small company wants to make the big company happy and
so wants to know how to format the data with least amount of fuss.

The way this would be accomplished in the absence of EDI would be this: the
big company would send a copy of its standard form to the small company, and
the small company would fill it out and send it back.

Today PGP signatures for authentication and encryption for secrecy allow
E-mail to replace the post office for this last step- so companies can now
communicate electronically in the same way that they do with paper.

Now you still want the data to be machine readable, but you don't want to
require small companies to become EDI experts- its too difficult and costly. 
They want make ball bearings and don't want to concern themselves with
obscure computer standards.

So instead of a common set of standards, the big company needs to just tell
the small company what it wants in a way that it can comprehend.

An EDI "standard" should then meet these goals:

 - EDI data should be directly human readable.  The small company could
   learn how the data is to be formatted just be looking at an example.  A
   human should be able to process the data (perhaps the small company only
   receives a few purchase orders- this goal is always a good idea anyway,
   you still want to be able to conduct business if your machine is down).

 - It should be possible to compose an EDI message either by hand or with
   the absolute minimum in required software.

 - Any standards should be freely copyable.  The big company should be able
   to just send the small company a copy of the standard (akin to sending it
   a form).

 - It should be trivial for the trading partners to make changes to the
   standards.

 - EDI data should also of course be machine readable so that the goal of
   automated processing can be met.  The standard itself should also be machine
   readable.

An EDI standard should probably look like a form:

# Order form - Free EDI standard No. 2

# Fill out the following header information
Standard: free-edi.order.2
Date: 19970212	 			# Please use yyyymmdd
E-mail ack: jhallen@world.std.com	# Where to send acknowledgement
E-mail dest: orders@motorola.com	# Email address of recipient
Comment:				# Comment

# List of orders
#  Refno is an identifier (reference number) for the order
#  Placed is the person who placed the order
#  Purchaser is the address code of the purchaser (see the List of addresses
#  table which follows).
#  Vendor is the address code of the vendor
#  Pay is the payment method code
#  Date is the date the order is placed

>orders :Refno  :Placed  :Purchaser  :Vendor    :Date
        :52536  :Joe     :jhallen    :moto      :19970212

# List of addresses
>addr   :code    :Name     :Street    :City     :State    :Zip...
        :jhallen :Joe Allen....
        :moto    :Motorola Inc.....

# Itemlines
>items  :code    :description                       :qty

And so on.

>If you don't mind my asking, why are you interested in EDI if you
>haven't been using it?  I'm not trying to give you a hard time;
>I'm just wondering.

I consult for a company which needs to become EDI capable (and I'm the one
who has to do it).  This effort is result of: Discovering that all books an
EDI are crap of the form "you must reengineer your business to conform to
the new EDI paradigm...".  Discovering that "translator software" costs
$4000.  Discovering that to get a copy of x12 costs $3000.  Discovering that
the software is just not going to integrate well with the accouning system
(unless we upgrade it: $10,000 - $20,000 plus everyone has to learn
something new).

Of course they're still going to do it (they want the big customer).

-- 
/*  jhallen@world.std.com (192.74.137.5) */               /* Joseph H. Allen */
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