Information technology professionals have wrestled with B2B information exchange standards for decades. First there was electronic data interchange (EDI), then EDIFACT, Rosetta Net, XML, and so on. Can there ever be a universal standard for B2B and supply chain information exchange?
The 80/20 Rule for Standardizing B2B Information Exchange. To me there is no “silver bullet” for a universal standard for B2B information exchange. It is not because the communications, technology, or data standards cannot be developed or acquired. The problem is that information is a competitive advantage for most businesses. Businesses use information in unique ways to keep ahead of the competition. It is the old “80/20″ rule when it comes to businesses exchanging data using a standard methodology. You can get 80% of the data interfaces and formats standardized, but the other 20% are going to be non-standard because it is supporting some unique, value-added information service.
The RFID Tag Opportunity to Standardize B2B Data. If Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags ever come down in price, there may be an opportunity for universal B2B data standards. RFID tags hold the promise to standardize data and data interfaces within supply chains. Standardized B2B data could be stored on RFID tags and accessed by common-use RFID interrogation networks.
In a RFID tag scenario, the RFID tag attached to a product or shipment would contain and maintain standard data elements about the shipment or product. The data about the product or shipment would actually travel along the supply chain with the product or shipment. Then business systems throughout the supply chain could interrogate the RFID tag to get as little or as much data as they want at any point in time. There are closed, proprietary RFID interrogation networks that do this today, but these networks are not available for general commerce.
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Tags: B2B, EDI, RFID, supply chain, XML