Thanks to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) piles of paper created in communications between retailers and manufacturers are a thing of the past now that business partners exchange orders, delivery notes and invoices electronically. 
Decreasing floods of paper
In a hypermarket customers are confronted with more than 120,000 different articles. Just imagine if a retailing company were to manually fill in a form and send it to its supplier by fax or ordinary mail each time Gouda cheese needs to be re-ordered. In turn, the supplier would write an order confirmation, dispatch the goods producing a delivery note which would end up with the retailing company together with the invoice for the Gouda cheese. Every day businesses partners would be flooded by paperwork not to mention the mistakes that might be made if article numbers were to be entered manually for each order and invoice.
The job is done virtually automatically
Since 1989, in an attempt to design the supply chain’s flow of information more efficiently, METRO Group and its suppliers have been exchanging information electronically more and more: Where is Gouda cheese made? How does it get to the customer? How many slabs of cheese did customers buy on a single day? Paperless data exchange – the technical term being Electronic Data Interchange or just EDI – is more than merely sending information by fax or electronic mail. EDI refers to the exchange of structured and standardized information between computers – albeit in a form allowing further processing of this data. A suitable system can immediately convert a company’s electronic order placed with a supplier into a delivery notification or invoice. Such EDI forms the basis of all customer-driven processes in retailing and manufacturing. Electronic data exchange ensures that information is readily available to all parties involved and get in swiftly.
Standardized information
For EDI to work all parties involved have to express their message in the same language. In 1987 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe defined a worldwide standard spanning various industries for that specific purpose: UN/EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport). The standard lays down a sort of syntax and grammar for electronically forwarded mail. Consequently, each information segment has its own exactly defined location within an EDI message.
Every article has its own personality
The most frequently used EDIFACT application standard within the consumer goods sector is EANCOM. EANCOM messages identify each product by a 13-digit EAN standard article number and each partner by a unique 13-digit Global Location Number (GLN) - formerly ILN, the latter indicating the company’s location. Internationally, the EAN standard article number is called Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). The EAN standard also includes the Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC). There are now 44 internationally applicable EANCOM message types, ten of which (PRICAT, SLSRPT, SLSFCT, INVRPT, ORDERS, DESADV, ORDRSP, RECADV, INVOIC, REMADV) represent the main businesses processes between retailers and manufacturers. Best known are INVOIC, the electronic invoice and ORDERS, the electronic order.
As the world’s third largest retailing group METRO Group is an EDI pioneer. EDI is a basic requirement for advanced applications such as CPFR, GNX or CMPlus in METRO Group’s collaboration portal Metro Link. Thanks to EDI the company optimizes its business processes as well as its communications and significantly cuts costs.
As the world’s third largest retailing group METRO Group is an EDI pioneer. EDI is a basic requirement for advanced applications such as CPFR, GNX or CMPlus in METRO Group’s collaboration portal Metro Link. Thanks to EDI the company optimizes its business processes as well as its communications and significantly cuts costs.
