Un/Edifact - Edi Competition And Harmonization

The late 1990s were characterized by the movement toward harmonization between UN/EDIFACT and the established U.S. EDI standard, the American National Standard Institute's Accredited Standards Committee X12 (ASC X12). ANSI's X12/EDIFACT Alignment Plan, and the subsequent launching of the U.S. X12 Strategic Implementation Task Group, drove efforts to coalesce the two standards into one global standard, and by the late 1990s U.S. firms and governments increasingly adopted the EDIFACT standard. As part of the plan, according to ANSI ASC X12 Chair Kendra L. Martin, where X12 was incom

patible with EDIFACT, X12 transaction sets were rewritten in the international syntax.

Up into the mid-1990s, however, ANSI and ASC were steadfast in their refusal to maintain their X12 standard independent of EDIFACT, opting instead for co-existence with the international standard, even allowing X12 users to continue developing new, specific standards based on the X12 design format and syntax. In other words, rather than simply migrate to the worldwide EDIFACT standard, ASC X12 plans centered on an "administrative alignment," in which ASC would modify X12 standards using EDIFACT's design rules, but remain independent and allow users to develop X12 freely within its established boundaries.

The reluctance of U.S. businesses and standards writers to adopt UN/EDIFACT was based on many reasons. First, critics of EDIFACT contended that it was less flexible in its methods of data definition than was X12. Beyond technical complaints, X12 support—as well as advocacy for convergence to EDIFACT—also drew on cultural and competitive rivalry. Developers and users of the older X12 resented the rapid rise of the upstart EDIFACT, and some U.S. organizations feared a competitive disadvantage stemming from the U.S. investment in converting to the international standard. For years, the convergence of X12 and EDIFACT was furthered by debate over which system would have to bend more.

Thus, by 1999, X12 was still the rule rather than the exception for U.S. companies. But efforts by leading companies to adopt EDIFACT were producing a ripple effect. For instance, General Motors, having adopted EDIFACT, ordered that its suppliers do likewise. U.S. standards organizations, led by ANSI, developed EDIFACT-friendly conversions that would allow companies to maintain their legacy applications while conducting international transactions using the EDIFACT standard. Outside the United States, EDI-FACT was the overwhelming standard, although it often vied with local and regional EDI standards for preeminence.