The Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet EDI
In the article “The price of Internet EDI” author Malcolm Wheatley, mainly focuses Internet-based electronic data interchange (EDI). It is an attempt made to discuss facts related to EDI and different views of some specialists in EDI are put forward.
The author points out that people tend to think that their business processes will become easier to execute and less expensive when they are moved onto Internet. But the author says that this assumption is only half right when it comes to Internet-based EDI. He supports his statement by discussing a case related to a company named “The Scott Company” located in Marysville, Ohio. With the request made by its biggest customer, Wal-Mart, this company adopted internet-based EDI that conforms to a particular standard known as AS2. AS2 is emerging as a single method used to packaging internet-based messages anytime in a faster way. Adopting this technology fetched lots of benefits to Wal-Mart but Scott Company had very little savings.
Different views about EDI stated by various technicians are discussed in this article. Some of them are as follows: “”Internet EDI is a very loose term,” complains Jim DeMin, technical manager at Infonet Services Corp” (Wheatley, 2004). “Eric Austvoid, research director at AMR Research, says some manufacturers see internet-based EDI “giving them more work to do without any immediate benefit” ” (Wheatley, 2004). Austviod also says that instead of using a private network, trading partners are making use of a public network for communicating with each other.
This article defined EDI as “Electronic data interchange: an automated method of exchanging business documents that bridges the gap between computer systems used in different companies” (Wheatley, 2004). Definitions to various terms like EDI Standard, VAN, Direct Connection, and AS2 are also stated in this article. Advantages and disadvantages regarding EDI are also discussed. This article concludes by discussing various EDI networks.
Reference:
Wheatley, M. (2004). The price of Internet EDI. MSI, 22(2), 48-50