What Is the Meaning of Being EDI Capable?
Ready to become EDI capable? Discover three steps to streamline B2B/EDI processes and easily exchange business documents.
1. Executive summary: EDI capable
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capability refers to the smooth, efficient exchange of electronic business documents in a standard format with your trading partners. Becoming “EDI capable” requires three steps: ERP connection, message conversion, and communication protocol. This can be achieved by running an EDI solution on-premises or by purchasing cloud-based EDI services, such as SEEBURGER Cloud Integration Services, which offers comprehensive EDI integration services for B2B partners.
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2. What does EDI capable mean in a classic sense?
EDI plays a crucial role in integrating external B2B systems and trading partners to streamline communication without paper. An EDI-capable company is able to partake in this highly automated data exchange. As part of broader B2B integration, EDI capability is often required in industries with highly automated supply chain processes. These processes depend on exchanging standardized business documents such as orders, dispatches, invoices, or inventory reports. These standards vary by industry. By following established standards, companies enable consistent communication along the supply chain—driving supply chain EDI automation at scale
3. How to become EDI capable in 3 steps
The ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems do not understand the EDI message standards natively. Thus structured data needs to come from the ERP of the sender’s ERP system in an internal format and must then be converted into the message standard before it can be sent to the receiver via the agreed-upon communication protocol.
Classic EDI format capability in three steps:
4. EDI capable: systems, formats and protocols
White paperWhere does EDI capable come from?
Any EDI solution today can do all of the above and combine these capabilities with a flexible BPEL Workflow Engine. After all, EDI has been connecting trading partners and automating Supply Chain Management (SCM) for more than 40 years.
Particularly in supply chain-oriented industries, EDI sets the standard for exchanging information from system to system in electronic format - with no need for paper and manual processes. With EDI, the data is exchanged in a structured form which, over time, has led to several EDI messaging standards in various industries and regions. EDI continues to dominate supply chain processes for the automotive, logistics, CPG and retail, manufacturing and utilities industries.
What defines the next level of being EDI capable?
Most organizations that need to utilize EDI already do so in one way or another. But often, there is room for improvement.
State-of-the-art EDI achieves a high automation of business processes through standardization, automation and simplification of critical data exchanges. Examples of supply chain management processes based on advanced EDI capability are Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) in the CPG/retail industry and Just-In-Time (JIT) and Just-In-Sequence (JIS) in the automotive industry.
Modern EDI provides state-of-the-art governance, management, visibility, easy onboarding of EDI trading partners and the flexibility to switch from on-premises to cloud and back at your own pace.
How do you reach the next level of being EDI capable?
Work with a market leading provider for EDI solutions. SEEBURGER connects any ERP system and supports all EDI format capability and communication protocols. BIS can be operated on premises, in a cloud model (i.e. iPaaS) or in a hybrid environment.
We are experienced in increasing the EDI capability of our many clients (over 14.000) by bridging their interoperability gaps. BIS is a hybrid integration platform (HIP) that can not only modernize and consolidate EDI processes, but it can also support your future requirements with full lifecycle API management and API integration, e-invoicing, a flexible rules-based approach and more.
