Increasing the stability and transparency of the logistics process with the new "Automated Response to Despatch Advice" Recommendation

In the worst case, due to transmission errors, the Despatch Advice message does not even arrive at the receivers system. Other errors are related to the selected message syntax (e.g. UN/EDIFACT) which prevents a conversion into the internal structures of the receiver, the message may contain erroneous data (wrong identifier etc.) and finally there might be discrepancies between the transmitted figures and the actual received (or usable) quantities.
The message is critical for the goods receiving process, updating warehouse figures and detecting bottleneck situations. Whenever the despatch advice cannot be processed automatically a manual intervention is necessary to avoid a break in the ongoing production process. Although the message has a key role for the control of logistics processes the handling of errors is often rather poor.

In many cases the sender of the message (usually the supplier) has to pay a fine for each error situation caused by an erroneous message to compensate for the additional manual effort at the customer side. Both sides have a genuine interest to avoid these situations and to improve the quality of the transmitted data.

This recommendation describes a standardised, highly automated error handling process which can increase the stability and transparency of the logistic process. It includes: 

·         Acknowledging the receipt of the despatch advice message

·         Transmission of detected syntax errors which prevent the processing

·         Transmission of detected data errors

·         Transmission of detected discrepancies between advised and actually delivered quantities as well as between requested and actual delivery date (too late or too early)

For the transmission of these detected errors and/or discrepancies, specific message implementation guidelines were developed by an Odette/VDA project team to facilitate the use of UN/EDIFACT message types CONTRL, APERAK and RECADV. For the RECADV, a profile of the JAIF Global RECADV recommendation is used.

The recommendation is intended to harmonise the error handling in the automotive supply chain and can also be used by service / solution providers to enhance the functionality of their solutions.

Consult the Recommendation