Electronic Data Interchange- EDI LEARNING OBJECTIVES To acquire basic knowledge on EDI To know the brief history of EDI To understand the types of EDI To learn the advantages of EDI To know about the layers of EDI To study about UN/EDIFACT Chapter Electronic Data Interchange- EDI In , a group of supermarket companies and their business partners begin drafting and using an EDI project. The TDCC is renamed as Electronic Data Interchange Association (EDIA) in . Later in that year, the EDIA was undertaken by the American National Standards Institute and becomes the ANSIX12 committee. Since then this committee is responsible for the publication of EDI standards.
Later in , UN created the EDIFACT to assist with the global reach of technology in E-Commerce. EDIFACT is the most widely used EDI. Like many other early information technologies, EDI was also inspired by developments in Defense Research Organization. Ed Guilbert , is called as the father of EDI.
He manifested shipping standardized format (much like the , or ASN) during the Berlin airlift. Guilbert with his team developed the first standardized system for business documents, that later influenced how documents would be passed from computer to computer. This standard helped to track “what was contained in the shipment”, “who was delivering the cargo”, while not allowing language barriers or confusing formats to delay the shipment. data exchange between buyers and sellers, trade partners, and also internal data exchange within departments of a company.
There are many internationally accepted EDI standard e.g. EDIFACT, XML, ANSI ASC X12, etc. The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the exchange of business documents between one trade partner and another electronically. It is transferred through a dedicated channel or through the Internet in a predefined format without much human intervention.
It is used to transfer documents such as delivery notes, invoices, purchase orders, advance ship notice, functional acknowledgements etc. These documents are transferred directly from the computer of the issuing company to that of the receiving company, with great time saving and avoiding many errors of traditional “on paper” communications.