Nidal,

I am responding to your question from a business strategy research and my own experience point of view. I had a client that wants to avoid EDI transaction costs. Here's an article that convenience him that EDI is replaceable in the future global supply chain.

Best regards,

John W.

Sorry, here's the attachment (Ubiquitous Wireless Sensor Networks for Environmental Monitoring in the Western Himalayan Region of India).

John W.

Christoph,

I admit I do not address the immediate premise. My argument is that industry is seeking to improved options to reach the future customer at the point of sale.

I hope I added value to this discussion.

Best regards,

John W.

This issue actually goes much deeper. Flexible sharing of information points to the ability to adapt to the requirements of the prevailing situation. The problem is that functionality in IT systems is riddled by design choices that are arbitrary to a large extent. When two or more such systems need to share information, it will not happen without (software development) effort and even then only deliver the intersection of what these arbitrary choices allow. If you want flexible, systems need to share information in terms of their world-of-interest, which more stable over time and shared already (there is only one reality). How to achieve this still is research-to-be-done or, at least, to be made widely known. In other words, it not a matter of upgrading EDI. There is more to be done on a fundamental level.

Thanks to all of you for your insightful responses.

Dear Nidal, you might want to take a look at work around the Internet of Things or the Internet of Services, a first step might be Industry 4.0 . If you want flexible Information Exchange, you will need a commonly agreed foundation, today usually in xml. This can be done in the form of an ontology and a process model indicating which Information is exchanged when. Partners will then be able to map their own data to this protocol. Usually you will have to create a foundation like this per Domain in which Partners would like to work together. EDI is a good example. As it is a fixed strcuture that cannot be enhanced by individuals according to their Needs, it does not satify everybody. Using ontologies and process descriptions you could provide your own way of exchanging Information, that is compliant with the foundation but could still reflect individual Needs.

Dear Dr. Frauke,

Thanks you for your answer and suggestion.

Nidal:

Do companies need to have new internet-based technology that enables flexible sharing of business information?

The answer is unequivocally yes. There are many facets of Internet technology besides EDI that enables flexible sharing. One that I have found very useful is called web-based Knowledge Management (KM) technology.

Due to complexity of products, we design today, knowledge must be managed globally to fully utilize corporate information and to provide a competitive edge. Unless intellectual properties (IPs) associated with product life-cycle management (PLM) & development process is captured into an Internet-based KM system for someone else in your company to use them again (regularly) at a later date, learning, productivity, and innovation are stifled.

You can find more details about such KM technologies at this web-link

http://www.knowledgesol.com/

Case Histories and Success Stories:

http://www.knowledgesol.com/kcrplm-applications.html

Brian

Link to Graphics

http://www.knowledgesol.com/kcrplm-applications.html

Dear Brian,

Thanks a lot for your answer and many thanks for sharing the graphics.

Nidal

Yes, today, companies need to have new internet-based technology that enables flexible sharing of business information for centralized DATA control of achieving Operational Excellence, by reducing Time, Distance.... .

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262689834_Manufacturing_Operations_Excellence?ev=prf_pub

Data Manufacturing Operations Excellence

The answer is definitely affirmative. This is highly important in all aspects and areas of a business segment. This is very important for management's planning, problem analysis and decision making.

EDI can always provide useful information and give updates on a business system. This tool can strengthen the company's competitiveness and improve the efficiency of an operation/ business process.

Yes. Information Technology has become a part of our life. Many companies are already operating on internet-based technology that enables flexible sharing of business information. Also, nowadays we have good search machines in this regard. On line purchase also has become popular. Naturally one should take care not to fall in the hands of the cheats.

Dr.S.Ravindran

A critical success factor for organizations today is the ability to adapt their structures, systems and processes to capture new markets and expand existing ones, &the competencies may be used in various staff management functions like: Planning performance expectations / determining training and development needs. The competencies are grouped together under categories & EDI is a good example. Each competency includes a title, a general definition, and several measurable or observable performance statements. Strategic organization design is a core business competency that identifies changes in the marketplace and consciously adapts the structures and processes of the organization to remain competitive, & companies need to have new internet-based technology that can enables flexible sharing.

information is power, hence flexible sharing of business information and deriving the advantage timely would fetch greater advantage to the organizations especially to the SME segment to manoeuvr the business deals... Almost everyday one company or other brings out their APPS that can be downloaded and used...

Yes, really the new business integration needs new types of information exchanges and collaboration. The advancemenet of the ICT can help the efforts. However, for further integrate the early suppliers of the supply chain that exists in developing countries have challenges to exploit this adavanatages. There are many reasons for these. The main callenges are knowledge gap, expensive cost of the facilities, poor infrastucture and other. The reserachers may find a better approach in helping with the professional skills and sharing the costs of software that may hinder the global supply integration for firms in less developing countries.

@ Fasika Bete Georgise

I agree with you, however from a SME view point

1. the initial investment may be high

2. resource skills will be less

You are adressing good points. In order to lower cost for digital integration it would be good to have communication standards not only on a technical but also on a logical/semantic level. It is imaginable to have such protocols defined for specific domains by companies/ppartners that have to work together in a specific supply chain. In semantic technologies we already have basic instruments that facilitate definiton of such protocols (ontologies and definition of the underlying business process). If those standards were available, integration costs would be much less than today.

Dear, thanks for your suggestions. I agree with your points.

sorry if I'm late here. I think competition now a days is among SCs rather than firms it selves, therefore, firms need advanced internet-based technologies enable them to provide real-time information sharing and real-time decision making to improve the SC efficiency and effectiveness.

how about the existing technologies? there are many extended ERP and other related tools, that are handy for this purpose

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and EDIFACT (The predominant international version for EDI developed under the UN) are still the most common standard for defining document format standards for exchanging electronic documents in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. The UN/EDIFACT Syntax Rules were approved as the ISO standard ISO 9735 in 1987. XML/EDIFACT allows EDIFACT message types to be used by XML systems, and the rules are defined by ISO TS 20625. XML is the database schema. EDIINT, which is initiated by The Uniform Code Council (UCC) published the AS2 standard which supports communications of EDI using the HTTP protocol. EDI is not an out-of-date technology, but essentially a most common B2B documents standard for use in Supply Chain Management (SCM) that involves multiple parties operating around the globe such as manufacturers, shipping companies, warehouses, 3PL providers and governments.

@ Sev V. Nagalingam

The new internet-based technology that enables flexible sharing of business information, ie. data science tools (Hadoop, HIVE, SQOOP, MongoDB) are enclosed

Data Data Science Analytic Tools

Intranet technology is already adopted by most of the system suppliers. The new trend is to use Enterprise Content Management Systems for sharing not only of documents but sharing of real-time dynamic production data. A good approach is to extend the existing functionality of existing CMS (like SharePoint) with additional Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) functionality, such as ISA 95 objects, OPC, BAPI, etc.  

@ Vladimir

We have SAP implemented but for DMS; we have introduced Sharepoint  in our organization for Document Management System, it serves three locations spread over 250 Km distance.... but the concern is on connectivity, at times the band width affects transfer....

Though the perform on different platforms the judicious mix of technologies help in co-existence.

Each company has its peculiarities. The greater or lesser concentration or support in technology - including the Internet - has several implications. Who is heavily dependent on information technology (such as the financial sector) need to define their strategies: develop these technologies internally to never rely on others (to supplement gaps only) or be allied with technology vendors. Who is less dependent on Information Technology is freer about this problem.

Hello Dr nidal and everybody.

If we try to see the company as part of its supply chain , then we can give better answers to your question. I think EDI is one of the best tools which can increase supply chains integration ( through coordination), thereby increase its surplus and decrease losses opportunity, and that off course will be reflected on all of the supply chain members.

for more details see" supply chain management strategy, planning, and operation" for Sunil Chopra and Meter Meindl.

Abdallah

@ Krishnan

If you implement a real ECM, it should work as an ordinary web site, so you could access it even via mobile net. At the moment it is quite easy to have Pad with mobile connection. Using VPN or related security. It just like e-banking :-)

In business the cutting edge of product determines its position in the market. There could be some positives in your product (ECM), which should be positioned with reference to the competitors, namely the major ERPs ( SAP / Oracle). Today, bringing the app to end user's mobile phone is an inevitable feature. Many banking sites have mobile banking.

ERPs ( SAP)

@Hermann Gruenwald.

Those days only a few companies have ventured into using the latest technologies, now with covid-19 and other emerging issues, the web and ICT based technologies have become essential to many.

Today's constantly evolving business climate, coupled with short product life cycles and sophisticated customer requirements demands and reinforces the need for flexible information sharing.

To enhance efficiency and effectiveness within an organisation, internal integration is the way forward. This practice can only be successful through the adoption of Internet based technologies (intranet) linking and integrating cross-functional units or departments. This allows for effective coordination of processes, facilitating the sharing of timely and relevant information across the organisation.

Visibility across the value chain can be attained and enhanced through the integration and interconnection of an aspect (s) of an organization's internal processes with its key external stakeholders' information systems through an extranet. 

To reduce the incidence of bullwhip effect across the chain, point-of-sale data is collected through the adoption of internet technologies facilitating the seamless flow of real time sales data. 

To this end, the need for internet based technologies amongst organizations in today's marketplace can not be overemphasized. 

Investment in ERP systems, EDI systems, IoT, amongst others, will give an organization the opportunity to reduce cost without compromising on quality. The resultant effect of these manifests in achieving a competitive edge within the industry.