EDI is the trade, transportation, insurance, banking and customs and other industry information, with an internationally recognized standard format, the formation of structured transaction processing message data format, through the computer communication network, so that the relevant departments, companies and enterprises for data exchange and processing, and to complete the trade-centered all business processes.EDI includes buyer and seller data exchange, internal data exchange within the enterprise, etc.
[edit]Characteristics of EDI
(1) EDI is used between different organizations, and EDI transmits inter-enterprise messages, which is a way of exchanging information between enterprises;
(2) the information transmitted by EDI is general business information, such as invoices and orders, rather than referring to general notices;
(3) EDI Transmission of the message is formatted, is in line with international standards, which is the basic premise of the computer is able to automatically process the message;
(4) EDI use of data communication networks are generally value-added network, private network;
(5) data transmission by the recipient and sender of the two sides of the computer system to directly transmit, exchange of information, without the need to manually intervene in the operation;
(6) EDI and fax or e-mail is the difference between:Fax and e-mail, the need for manual reading judgment processing to enter the computer system. Manually repeat the information into the computer system, both a waste of human resources, but also prone to errors, and EDI does not need to repeat the relevant information into the system manually.
[edit]Elements that make up an EDI system
The three elements that make up an EDI system are: EDI software and hardware, communication networks, and data standardization.
A department or enterprise to realize EDI, first of all, there must be a set of computer data processing system; Secondly, in order to make the internal data of the enterprise is relatively easy to convert to the EDI standard format, must use the EDI standard; In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of the communication environment is also related to the success or failure of the EDI is also one of the important factors.
EDI standard is the most critical part of the whole EDI, due to the EDI is to realize the agreed form of message format for data transmission and information exchange, once the development of a unified EDI standard is essential. EDI standard is mainly divided into the following aspects: the basic standard, code standards, message standards, but the standard, management standards, application standards, communication standards, security standards, and so on. .
[edit]EDI standard system
EDI is by far the most mature and widely used e-commerce application system. Its fundamental feature lies in the internationalization of standards, and standardization is the key link to realize EDI. Early EDI standards, only by the trade parties to agree on their own, with the expansion of the scope of use, the emergence of industry standards and national standards, and finally formed a unified international standards. The emergence of international standards has greatly contributed to the development of EDI. With the introduction of various international standards of EDI, as well as the maturity of the open EDI conceptual model, the application of EDI is not only limited to the field of international trade, but also in the administration, medical care, construction, environmental protection and other fields have been widely used. It can be seen that the standards of EDI is to make EDI technology can be widely used in the important technical support, EDI standardization work is indispensable in the process of EDI development of a fundamental work.
EDI standard system is within the scope of EDI applications, with the intrinsic link between the standard composition of the scientific organic whole, which consists of a number of sub-systems, the sub-systems exist between the mutual constraints, interactions, interdependence and complementary intrinsic links. According to the international standard system and China's EDI application of the actual and future development of a period of time, the development of the EDI standard system, "EDI system standardization of the overall norms" as the overall technical documents. The specification as China's "Eighth Five-Year Plan" key scientific and technological research projects, is a period of time in China's EDI standardization of technical guidelines, in the leading and dominant role.
According to the specification, the EDI standard system is divided into seven parts, namely, foundation, document, message, code, communication, security, and management application, which are as follows:
[Edit]EDI foundation standard system
Mainly consists of two parts, namely, the foundation standard of UN/EDIFACT and the foundation standard of open EDI, which is the core standard system of EDI. Among them, EDIFACT has seven basic standards, including EDI terminology, EDIFACT application-level grammar rules, grammar rules implementation guidelines, message design guidelines and rules, trade data meta-directory, composite data meta-directory, segment directory, code table, China's equivalent adoption of these seven standards; open EDI foundation standards are the most important and basic conditions for realizing open EDI, including Business, legal, communication, security standards and general standards in information technology, etc. ISO/IEC JTC1 SC30 launched the Open EDI Conceptual Model and the Open EDI Reference Model, which stipulates the general framework for coordinating and formulating the existing and future open EDI standards, and becomes the guide for future open EDI standardization work. The accompanying large number of functional service standards and business operation standards, etc. will become international standards to guide EDI applications in various fields.
[edit]EDI document standard system
EDI message standards from the relevant business, while the business process is reflected in the document. The main goal of the standardization of documents is to unify the data elements and paper format in the document, which is quite extensive. Its standard system includes management, trade, transportation, customs, banking, insurance, tax, postal and other aspects of the document standards.
[edit]EDI message standard system
EDI message standard is the structured embodiment of each specific application data, all the data in the form of messages to transmit out or receive in. EDI message standard is mainly embodied in the United Nations Standard Message (United Nations Standard Message , referred to as the UNSM). Its 1987 formally formed when only a dozen messages, and to February 1999, UN/EDIFACT D.99A version has included 247 messages, of which there are 178 United Nations Standard Message (UNSM), 50 draft message (Message in Development, referred to as MiD) and 19 nullification of the message, involving customs, banking, Insurance, Transportation, Law, Taxation, Statistics, Tourism, Retail, Medical, Manufacturing and many other fields.
[edit]EDI code standard system
In the EDI transmission of data, in addition to the company name, address, name and some free text content, almost most of the data in the form of code issued, in order to make the exchange of the parties to facilitate the understanding of the content of the information received, it will be in the form of code to the transmission of the data fixed down. Code standards is an indispensable part of the realization process of EDI, EDI code standards system, including management, trade, transportation, customs, banking, insurance, inspection and other aspects of the code standards.
[edit]EDI communication standard system
Computer network communication is a necessary condition for the realization of EDI, EDI communication standards are the basic guarantee for the smooth transmission of data sent or received by EDI. 10021, X.500 series, etc., of which the X.400 series/ISO 10021 standard is a set of international standards on e-post. Although this set of standards, ISO called MOTIS, ITU called MHS, but its technical content is compatible, they and EDI have a closer relationship.
[edit]EDI security standards system
Because the EDI transmission of data will involve trade secrets, the amount of money, the number of orders and so on, in order to prevent data tampering, loss, must be through a series of security and confidentiality specifications to give the guarantee. EDI security standards system, including the EDI security specification, the electronic signature specification, the message authentication specification, the key management specification, X.435 security services, X.505 security services, the EDI security standards system, the EDI security specification, the EDI security specification. 435 security services, X. 509 authentication framework system. In order to develop EDIFACT security standards, the United Nations in 1991 set up a joint UN/EDIFACT security working group to carry out the development of relevant standards.
[edit]EDI management standard system
EDI management standard system mainly involves the evaluation guidelines and rules related to the maintenance of EDI standards, including standard technical evaluation guidelines, standard message and catalog file preparation rules, directory maintenance rules, message maintenance rules, the format of the technical evaluation sheet, directory and code compilation principles, EDIFACT standard version and release number compilation principles. The standard version number and release number compilation principle of EDIFACT, etc.
[edit]EDI application standard system
EDI application standard system mainly refers to the character set standards and other related standards used in the application process, including: seven-bit coded character set and its expansion method for information exchange; Chinese character coded character set for information exchange; universal multi-octet coded character set; Chinese character coded character set auxiliary 2 set and 4 set for information exchange.
The framework structure of the EDI standard system is not static, and it will be constantly updated and enriched with the development of EDI technology and the continuous improvement of EDI international standards.