Ways to comunicate with other systems

["Janell Haskins" <jhaskins@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have just be informed that I have a meeting tomorrow with one of our vendors 
to discuss how we can automate sending customer orders directly to them rather 
than stocking the inventory ourselves.

I doubt the company using an AS/400 or iSeries and I'm know that even if they 
do, they don't use the same ERP package that we do.

I don't have any real experience in dealing with eCommerce type projects.  I 
know that we can use EDI to communicate between our system and theirs.  (We 
already do this in a couple of different cases.)  I also know that I could 
write a program to create a file with the necessary information in the IFS and 
then used FTP or something similar to communicate.  (I'm not sure how exactly 
to implement this, but I know it is a possibility.)

What are some of our other options, what have you tried and found successful, 
etc? Where would you suggest I go for additional information?  I don't need a 
lot of details right now, the meeting is basically a brain storming session.  
However, any suggestions that you could provide would be appreciated.  I'd be 
especially interested in any other PRMS users that have implemented something 
like this.

Thanks for your assistance.

Janell Haskins
Programmer/Analyst
Knit-Rite, Inc.
Kansas City, KS
jhaskins@knitrite.com