About Global EDIFACT Messages

EDIFACT

EDIFACT means Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce and Trade. It is a UN/CEFACT recommendation for standardised automated  data exchange. EDIFACT has been developed since the late 80ies and is heavily used all over the world.

Since EDIFACT is designed to be flexible and adaptable to various business areas and scenarios it cannot be used as it is. It is common practice to develop and publish so-called message implementation guidelines. They adapt the UN Standard Messages (UNSM) to a specific industry and business process.

Odette has migrated it’s message recommendations from the proprietary Odette syntax to EDIFACT in the early 90ies. Various implementation guidelines for the use of EDIFACT in the European automotive industries’ supply chain were then developed and published.

Global EDIFACT Message Guidelines

With growing internationalisation and co-operation the automotive industry demanded a harmonisation of message standards on a global level rather than a regional level. Consequently, AIAG, JAMA/JAPIA and Odette as the responsible associations of North America, Japan and Europe created the Joint Automotive Industry Forum as a platform for business process and message harmonisation. In six global projects they developed Global Message Implementation Guidelines to cover the core processes of the supply chain.

The messages span the processes of demand forecast, delivery instruction for traditional and Just-In-Time deliveries, despatch advice (aka advance shipment notice), receiving advice, invoice and remittance (payment) advice.

Meanwhile these messages are implemented and used by various European OEMs, among them BMW, Ford, SCANIA, Volvo and Volkswagen and by their suppliers.

The use of these messages allows establishing one common business interface between OEM and suppliers worldwide. Several service providers developed pre-configured translation tables to convert the internal data of ERP systems into these EDIFACT messages (outbound) and vice versa (inbound). Test tools are provided by Odette and its member organisations to further support the migration to or implementation of these Global Messages.

Download the documents (Authorised Users Only)