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EDI Fundamentals Class
June 10, 2005
Whether you are new to EDI or
have been working in the field, this is a great opportunity to network
with other EDI professionals and brush up on your EDI knowledge.
Sign Up
Now for Early Registration Discount
Yes, this is our
First Edition
If you subscribed a while ago, thanks for
your patience!
We try to cover the highlights of
the industry but if we have missed something, let us know and we will
try to incorporate it in an upcoming edition.
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Upcoming
Industry Meetings
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The Southern California eBusiness Forum will have their
next meeting on May 11, 2005. The meeting topic is "EDI-INT Update 2005."
Additional Information
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Staffing &
Support
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If you are looking to fill an EDI position or find short
term staffing, we can post a job opening on our site for a minimal
monthly fee.
Find out more about
EDI staffing.
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Retail EDI News
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UCC Sunrise 2005 - Summary
of the Event
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The Uniform Code Council's 2005 Sunrise date on January 1, 2005
was a requirement for U.S. retailers to be able to scan EAN-13 codes in addition
to UPC codes. The EAN-13 is the European Article Number and is 13 digits long.
The UPC is used in the U.S. for item marking and is 12 digits. A UPC code can be
scanned as an EAN-13 code with an assumed leading zero. The sunrise date was
announced in 1997 to facilitate global commerce so that U.S. retailers could
utilize the EAN product marking by having scanners and systems that are capable
of reading the 13 digit code. Most U.S. retailers were capable of scanning the
EAN codes well in advance of the sunrise date. |
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GTIN Compliance
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The Global Trade
Identification Number (GTIN) expands the UPC and EAN to a 14 digit number with
the 14th digit utilized to define packaging. As part of the Sunrise 2005 requirements from the UCC,
there was a recommendation that if upgrading systems be Sunrise 2005
compliant, that a company should also plan to become GTIN compliant.
A review of major department store EDI
guidelines finds that most are not asking their trading partners to replace UPC
codes with GTIN codes in their EDI documents. An exception to this is May
Company which is inserting 2 leading zeroes to put UPC codes into GTIN formats
and asking their trading partners to do the same in the documents that they
transmit.
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Retail Mergers and Acquisitions
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The first part of the break up of Saks Inc. was
announced on April 30 with the sale of Profitt's and McRae's to privately held
Belk Inc. Up for sale are also the Boston
Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Herberger's, Bergner's and Younkers department store
chains, as well as 43 Club Libby Lu stores. Saks
has indicated that they will
continue to operate Saks Fifth Avenue and Parisians.
The merger of Kmart and Sears as Sears Holdings
Corporation closed on March 24, 2005.
Federated Department Stores and May Department
Stores are working through FTC and SEC requirements with an anticipated goal of
completing their merger in Q3.
Additional news and details can be found here.
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EDI Service
Provider News
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 During
the last several months, there has been some significant merger activity amongst
some of the major service providers. In November of 2004, Inovis
(formerly Harbinger, Peregrine, Extricity) acquired QRS
Corporation with the primary motive seeming to be the acquisition of the QRS
Catalogue along with their significant customer base of retailers utilizing the
VAN services. In January of
this year, GXS (formerly GE) acquired the VAN services that were owned by
IBM. QRS had
been a major reseller of the IBM VAN services. The speculation as to how Inovis
would deal with this situation ended when when Inovis and G International (the
IBM VAN services of GXS)
announced in March that they were extending the VAN reseller agreement that
existed between QRS and IBM. Inovis also announced in April that they had sold
the QRS Managed EC business to Internet Commerce Corporation.
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Technology News
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Radio Frequency Identification,
RFID, provides a means for identifying unique items using radio waves. The data
is typically stored in a digital format in a microchip. An RFID tag can contain
much more data than a barcode. An RFID reader can read several RFID tags at a
time from up to a hundred feet away.
Target, Wal-Mart, and Albertsons
are all implementing RFID technology with top suppliers. The usage is case
and pallet level markings.
In the U.K., Marks & Spencer, PLC
is testing RFID tags on men's clothing. Metro AG is currently rolling out RFID
technology across it's German stores.
Additional information on RFID
applications can be found here.
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