What is EDI?
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the computer-to-computer exchange of data specific
documents in a public standard format among businesses,
government, institutions and the like. Instead of relying on the
telex, fax machine, or the mail, EDI users exchange business
documents directly between computers. The data on these
documents may be input to or output from another computer
application. The data may be manually entered and translated on
one computer and sent to the other. Received EDI documents may
be translated and printed in human-readable formats for users
who do not have other computer applications.
Organizations that receive and translate EDI data into a
human-readable format on screen or on paper still must reply to
their trading partners (the trading partners' computers) in EDI
format. This alone, not to mention the superior logistics and
capacities of a microcomputer, rules out the use of fax, telex,
and telephone as EDI substitutes. Traditionally, organizations
conducted all of their business on paper. The growing amount of
paper exchange between organizations forced some to find a
better way to communicate and exchange data. It seemed right
with widespread computer growth in business that this new method
of exchange would include electronic interchange. Early
electronic interchanges used a proprietary format agreed upon by
two organizations. As the need for more and more business
documents arose, there was indeed a need for a standard. In the
1960's several organizations came together to accomplish this
task for purchasing, transportation, and financial applications.
By the 1970s, ANSI ASC X12 began the first national electronic
data interchange standard which included those created
previously and retail industry standards. In the past, even
among highly automated organizations, data was manually
reformatted and re-entered into the receiving computer. EDI
bridges the data gap between different organizations with
different computers. EDI typically includes data formatting,
translation into and from the EDI (public standard) format,
trading partner administration, controls, and computer
telecommunications capabilities. The "bulk file transfer" nature
of EDI enables the exchange and processing of business documents
at low cost. Delivery is usually within a few minutes or
fraction of an hour. For data needed in "fast-time", as opposed
to real-time, EDI has distinguished itself as a significantly
more efficient and cost effective approach to data exchange than
on-line methodologies, which usually are people-intensive and
usually not application-to-application capable.
>> How does Coupler do EDI?
