RE: EDI at midrange sites - Off Topic??

Conversion of data from the customers numbers (ship to locations, part
numbers, etc) is one of the biggest hassles of EDI.  Again, this is not
really an EDI problem, it is the lack of function in the application.  Most
ERP systems have a place for cross reference info (ie customers part
number), and the translators have incorporated good integration (they allow
you to create an external table to look up the cross reference info).
Again, these are application issues not EDI.  I hear the XML will kill EDI,
but the "problems" with EDI will exist with XML also.  A new data format is
not going to fix any of EDI's shortcomings.
cjg


Carl J. Galgano
EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
550 Kennesaw Avenue, Suite 800
Marietta, GA  30060
(770) 422-2995 - voice
(419) 730-8212 - fax
mailto:cgalgano@ediconsulting.com
http://www.ediconsulting.com
AS400 EDI, Networking, E-Commerce and Communications Consulting and
Implementation
http://www.icecreamovernight.com
Premium Ice Cream Brands shipped Overnight
FREE AS/400 Timesharing Service -
http://www.ediconsulting.com/timeshare.html
"You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know" - rw

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
[mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Buck Calabro
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 2:40 PM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: RE: EDI at midrange sites - Off Topic??


Al Mac had some excellent insight on how the trading partner can be your
worst enemy in the EDI process, and I'll add only one thing to his remarks:
Typically, EDI is driven by the larger trading partner.  When General
Electric says "You will use EDI" then you use EDI.  When General Electric
decides to use the Contact Name field to store the Purchase Order Number,
you're not likely to tell them to pound salt no matter how much the urge
strikes you.

The number one difficulty I had with EDI was NOT setting up the translation
tables (Premenos running on AS/400).  The main issue was _integrating_ EDI
into our daily operations.  When GE sent in a PO, it had to be translated
into our customer numbers, our part numbers and input into our order entry
system.  There's no existing function to do that in O/E, so we had to write
that.  GE wanted an acknowledgement, verifying quantities and prices.
Another new function.  GE wanted a shipping manifest.  Another new function.
Work payments into the picture and you can see that there are potentially
quite a few places your existing system needs to expose an interface to the
outside world.  Unless you simply detail somebody to hand-key the stuff into
the existing applications...

  --buck
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