|
The first recorded EDI dates back to the 1850s when the railroads and Western Union used the telegraph to communicate business information. Starting there, Samuel Morse's patented code was the single method used to communicate across the lines.
Moving ahead to the 1960s, larger scale digital communication began supporting e-commerce. Companies could exchange order information and delivery schedules, but no standard existed, so small business enclaves created their own processes. Case after case, individual companies belonged to multiple enclaves and were forced to use multiple data formats to exchange similar information. The need to converge multiple data syntaxes and vocabularies was obvious. With all the emerging benefits of electronic commerce - more powerful communications and exchanges, faster response times, stronger relationships with trading partners - we needed standards to harness the great potential of electronic commerce. In 1975, the Transportation Data Coordinating Committee published its first standard and by 1979 ANSI designated an accredited standards committee for EDI. This new SDO - Accredited Standards Committee X12 - would lead the creation of EDI in an open, and neutral cross-industry environment, with processes rich with meetings (virtual & face-to-face) and formal procedures that have produced broad-based consensus on vocabulary implemented by 90% of the Fortune 1000 corporations. Today ASC X12 continues to deliver a dictionary of data elements, data segments, business transactions, messaging & enveloping. All of these elements are updated three times/year via established review & approval procedures. These transactions are used across industries to support financial, manufacturing, transportation, retail supply, and many other chains.
|
