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EDIFICE is a forum to develop and
agree guidelines and recommendations on
the implementation of e-business
standards. The forum was originally
formed in 1986 around the
implementation of the EDI standard
EDIFACT.
In recent years the scope has extended
to the new technologies for
inter-enterprise e-business that became
available with wide adoption of the
Internet.
EDIFICE is a
European organisation. Its formation
was encouraged and sponsored by the
European Union as part of their efforts
to promote EDI implementations in
Europe. But it has a global vision; many
of the member companies are global
multinationals, some with headquarters
in Europe and others with important
operations in Europe but having their
headquarters on other continents.
The
membership includes manufacturers of
semiconductors and other electronic
components and their primary customers,
being manufacturers of communications
products, computers and consumer
electronics, distributors of
semiconductors and contract equipment
manufacturers.
The early work
of EDIFICE was focused on the
provision of guidelines for the
implementation of EDIFACT messages
for implementation in the specific
inter-enterprise business processes used
in the sector. EDIFICE developed an
approach to documenting EDIFICE message
implementation guides that provided
precise guidelines clearly aligned with
specific business requirements.
Extensive work was
also done in related business areas. For
example in the area of physical
distribution, an architecture of
business processes, goods flows and
information flows was developed in which
the links between physical consignments
and the related information flows were
implemented via standardised bar-coded
shipment labels. An element of this
architecture is the unique
identification of transport units.
EDIFICE worked with other bodies in the
definition of an ISO/IEC standard for
unique identification of transport units
(known as the ‘license plate’) and is
authorised as Issuing Agency for
License Plate prefixes.
Drawing on work being
done in UN/EDIFACT in the early
nineties, EDIFICE developed a framework
for the complete set of deliverables
required to provide standards and
guidelines on the implementation of
inter-enterprise business processes
using electronic messaging.
This
framework forms the basis for the
EDIFICE Repository and includes
specification of the business
processes and scenarios as well as
the information flows and
message structures.
With the rapid
increase in use of the Internet and
related technologies the EDIFICE forum
proved its value as a place where
information and experience could be
exchanged on new and developing
e-business techniques. Ways were sought
of gaining the benefits of the new
technologies while preserving the value
of investments in existing standards and
large numbers of EDI implementations. A
guideline on sending EDI messages over
the Internet was developed and some
early experiments were done on
converting EDIFACT EDI messages to
XML.
Many of the companies
in EDIFICE also became members of
RosettaNet, a consortium of companies in
the IT, semiconductors and components
industries, which was formed in the USA
to create and implement industry-wide,
open e-business process standards.
EDIFICE has played a significant role in
the adoption of RosettaNet standards in
Europe. EDIFICE became the European
RosettaNet User Group.
In addition to
RosettaNet, EDIFICE has maintained a
wide network of liaisons and
contacts with other associations. Within
the industry sector these include
ESIA, JEITA, and
AsiaB2B. With other industry sectors
contacts include SWIFT, CEFIC, ODETTE
and IATA. Among the formal
standardisation bodies EDIFICE contacts
include ANSI, CEN, ISO/IEC, NEN,
OAGi, UN/CEFACT
and the cross-industry ebXML
initiative.
The forum format has
proved flexible and adaptable. EDIFICE
has an absolute minimum of its own
resources. The work on deliverables is
primarily undertaken by people from
member companies in EDIFICE task
groups, with infrastructure support
available from the EDIFICE Secretariat
as required.
Task groups are chartered
by the Plenary meeting of members,
and may be initiated on any areas of
work within the overall scope of
EDIFICE. This approach enables work to
be focused on issues that are of actual
importance to member companies and where
they are willing to provide the
resources.
Whereas in
early years much effort was devoted to
the technicalities of EDI, more recently
the Plenary meetings have taken the form
of conferences around a particular theme
related to e-business with presentations
by invited experts.
See the list of
Past Plenaries
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The
European Network for B2B Integration in High Tech Industries
