Productos provenientes de un país extracomunitario

Purchase request initiated in the organization Purchase department Inventory and warehousing Finance department EDI-capable computer Receiving department Paymen t details EDI-capable computer Finance department Sales department Manufacturin g department Shipping department Purchase-order delivery Automated-order confirmation

Fig. 6.1 Information flow with EDI

Step1 : Buyer’s computer sends Purchase Order to seller’s computer.

Step2 : Seller’s computer sends Purchase Order Confirmation to buyer’s computer. Step3 : Seller’s computer sends Booking Request to transport company’s computer. Step4 : Transport company’s computer sends Booking Confirmation to seller’s Computer.

Step5 : Seller’s computer sends Advance Ship Notice to buyer’s computer. Step6 : Transport company’s computer sends status to seller’s computer. Step7 : Buyer’s computer sends Receipt Advice to seller’s computer. Step8 : Seller’s computer sends Invoice to buyer’s computer.

Step9 : Buyer’s computer sends Payment to seller’s computer.

The Purchase Order Confirmation is the seller’s acceptance of the price and terms of sale. Firms are adopting EDI as a fast, inexpensive, and safe method of sending invoices, purchase order, customs

documents, shipping notices, and other frequently used business documents. The improved ability to exchange huge amounts of data in a fast and effective manner tends to speed up business processes. Such flexibility allows firms to adopt business techniques aimed at removing the bottlenecks and making the business processes more efficient.

6.3.1 Tangible Benefits of EDI

EDI can be a cost- and time-saving system, for many reasons. The automatic transfer of information from computer to computer reduces the need to rekey information and as such reduces costly errors to near zero. EDI transactions produce acknowledgments of receipt of data.

Saving also accrue from the following improvements:

 Reduced paper-based systems: EDI can impact the effort and expense a company devotes to maintaining records, paper- related supplies, filing cabinets, or other storage systems and to the personnel required to maintain all of these systems. EDI can also reduce postage bills because of the amounts of paper that no longer need be sent..

 Improved problem resolution and customer service: EDI can minimize the time companies spend to identify and resolve interbusiness problems. EDI can improve customer service by enabling the quick transfer of business documents and a marked decrease in errors.  Expanded customer/supplier base: Many large manufacturers and retailers with the necessary

clout are ordering their suppliers to institute an EDI program. However, these are isolated islands of productivity because they are unable to build bridges to other companies. With the advent of electronic commerce, the bridge is now available.

6.4

EDI: LEGAL, SECURITY, AND PRIVACY ISSUES

Since in the case of EDI, we are dealing with trade between countries and corporations, issues of legal admissibility and computer security are paramount. However, careful assessment of the trade-offs must be part of this process and should satisfy legal requirements.

6.4.1 Legal Status of EDI Messages

There has been considerable debate concerning the legal status of EDI messages and electronic messages in general. No rules exist that indicate how electronic messages may be considered binding in business or other related transactions. The establishment of such a framework is essential if EDI is to become widespread.

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6.4.2 Digital Signatures and EDI

The cryptographic community is exploring various technical uses of digital signatures by which messages might be time-stamped or digitally notarized to establish dates and times at which a recipient might claim to have had access or even read a particular message. If digital signatures are to replace handwritten signatures, they must have the same legal status as handwritten signatures. The digital signature provides a means for a third party to verify that the notarized object is authentic. Digital signatures should have greater legal authority than handwritten signatures. For instance, if a ten-page contract is signed by hand on the tenth page, one cannot be sure that the first nine pages have not been altered. If the contract was signed by digital signatures, however, a their party can verify that not one byte of the contract has been altered. Without such a framework, it is hard to see how EDI can fulfill the role envisioned for it in the future.

6.5

EDI AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

The economic advantages of EDI are widely recognized, but until recently, companies have been able to improve only discrete processes such as automating the accounts payable function or the funds transfer process. Companies are realizing that to truly improve their productivity they need to automate their external processes as well as their internal processes. This is the thrust of new directions in EDI.

New EDI services for electronic commerce are seen as the future bridge that automates external and internal business processes, enabling companies to improve their productivity on a scale never before possible. They present information management solutions that allow companies to link their trading community electronically. Another goal of new EDI services is to reduce the cost of setting up an EDI relationship. These costs are still very high because of the need for a detailed bilateral agreement between the involved business partners and for the necessary technical agreements. Therefore most successful EDI implementations are either in long-term partnerships or among a limited number of partners.

With the advent of interorganizational commerce, several new types of EDI are emerging that can be broadly categorized as traditional EDI and open EDI.

6.5.1 Traditional EDI

Traditional EDI replaces the paper forms with almost strict one-to-one mappings between parts of a paper form to fields of electronic forms called transaction sets. Traditional EDI covers two basic business areas:

1) Trade Data Interchange (TDI) encompasses transactions such as purchase orders, invoices, and acknowledgments.

2) Electronic Funds Transfer ( EFT) is the automatic transfer of funds among banks and other organizations.

6.5.2 Open EDI

The increased interest in open EDI is a result of dissatisfaction with traditional EDI. The big difference between the traditional EDI model and the needs of today is that business today has a much larger component of rapid project based partnerships that are created and dissolved in time scales too small to permit a full-blown standards process to play out its consensus building.

Open EDI is a business procedure that enables electronic commerce to occur between organizations where the interaction is of short duration. In essence, open EDI is the process of doing EDI without the upfront trading partner agreement that is currently signed by the trading partners before they commerce trying to do business by EDI. The goal is to sustain ad hoc business or short-term trading relationships using simpler legal codes.

In other words, open EDI is a business process for automating the operation of the law of contract within the context of electronic commerce where transactions are not repeated or sustained over a long period of time. The facilitates revisions and aids in more speedy agreement on a final version.

6.6 SUMMARY

We understand the basic concept behind EDI – transferring of data from one computer to another, without the need for reentering. This is one of the grate attractions of EDI. We then moved on to discuss the layered architecture of EDI – comprising of semantic layer, standard layer, transport layer and physical layer. WE then outlined the tangible benefits of EDI, like reduced paper based systems, better customer base etc. The next stage was to discuss a few of the legal, security and privacy issues. We discussed in principle the legal status of EDI messages and also the concept of signatures in EDI. The discussion ended with the concept of open EDI, which help electronic interaction between organizations for short durations.

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6.7 QUESTIONS

2. List the four layers of EDI architecture. 3. List any two tangible benefits of EDI.

4. Who is liable if an EDI network fails to deliver the message? 5. Can the digital signature fully replace handwritten signature? 6. What is EFT?

7. What is the need for open EDI?

8. With the help of a diagram explain the flow of in formation in EDI. 9. List the tangible benefits of EDI.

10. Explain the layered architecture of EDI.

6.7.1 Answer

1. Inter-process communication of business information in standard electronic form. 2. Semantic layer, standard layer, transport layer and physical layer.

3. Reduced paper based systems, improved customer service. 4. Not decided as yet.

5. No

6. Electronic Fund transfer.

7. To allow e-commerce between two organizations for a short duration.

Chapter 7

EDI Implementation, Value-Added