[Index]
6th UN/CEFACT Forum session in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia,
approves five Business Requirements
Specifications (BRS)
Geneva, 23 March 2005 - Significant
future improvements in trade facilitation
will result from the adoption, by software
makers, of the electronic business and
trade facilitation standards. To achieve
these improvements, UN/CEFACT has placed
at the centre of its e-Business strategy
three fundamental elements:
- Cross-sectoral analysis (to promote
interoperability and supply chain
synchronicity);
- Business process and information
modelling (to capture user requirements,
independent of any specific technology,
through the creation of business collaboration
models); and
- Mapping to new technologies as
they emerge (e.g., eXtensible Markup
Language (XML), Web Services, shared
and/or distributed objects, etc.).
The vast breadth of business
knowledge will be captured by Business
Requirement Specifications (BRS) that
are independent of the underlying technology
and explicit means of implementation.
The benefits to the users will be the
protection of existing infrastructure
investments by reducing the cost of transitioning
to new technologies.
At the UN/CEFACT Forum
meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur from 14
to 18 March 2005, the Steering Committee
of the International Trade and Business
Processes Permanent Group (TBG) formally
approved the first Business
Requirement Specifications (BRS) to be
submitted to the next UN/CEFACT Plenary
session for approval as UN/CEFACT
Business Standards, namely:
- Cross industry invoice;
- Cross industry remittance advice;
- BoostAero e-Supply Chain;
- Material Safety Data Sheet;
- E-Tendering.
A description of each of these BRS follows.
Cross Industry
Invoice
The commercial invoice
is an important document exchanged between
trading partners. In addition to its prime
function as a request for payment, from
the customer to the supplier, the invoice
is an important accounting document and
has potential legal implications for both
trading partners.
The purpose of this document is to define
globally consistent invoicing processes
for worldwide supply chains, using a UN/CEFACT
Modelling Methodology (UMM) approach and
Unified Modelling Language to describe
and detail the business processes and
transactions involved.
Cross Industry
Remittance advice
The remittance advice
process is part of the payment process
for the transfer of funds between the
customer and the supplier in the supply
chain. The following functions comprise
the payment cycle:
- remittance advice process: the remittance
advice transmission between the customer
and the supplier;
- payment order process: the execution
of the payment (transfer of funds) between
the customer, customer’s bank,
supplier bank and the supplier.
The purpose of this document
is to define a globally consistent remittance
advice process between the customer and
the supplier for use in supply chains
worldwide, using the UN/CEFACT Modelling
Methodology (UMM) approach and Unified
Modelling Language to describe and detail
the business processes and transactions
involved.
BoostAero e-Supply
Chain
The main air and space
industries, with the support of the Aerospace
Industries of America (AIA) and the Aerospace
and Defence Industries Association of
Europe (ASD) have defined a set of globally
consistent procurement processes for the
Airspace and Defence industry supply chain
using the UN/CEFACT Modelling Methodology
(UMM) approach and Unified Modelling Language
(UML) to describe and detail business
processes in the air industry supply chain.
The scope is limited to the relations
between vendors and acquisitionists and
will not concern – at least for
the moment – third-party participants
(carriers, logisticians, freight forwarders).
The document deals with purchases of aeronautic
parts, services, manufacturing (machining,
tooling, designing) but does not address
issues concerning CAD-CAM data exchange.
Material Safety
Data Sheet
The Material Safety Data
Sheet Project (MSDS) project, sponsored
by the US Government, is designed to allow
trading partners around the world to exchange
hazardous material (HAZMAT) information
in an internationally recognized format.
The MSDS, published by the American National
Standards Institute and required by the
US Government, contains information about
the known or possible health and safety
effects of exposure to hazardous material.
The MSDS is also the source for chemical-specific
data for compliance with reporting requirements
under two US Government acts. The MSDS
may contain the following hazardous material
information:
- personal protections;
- emergency response;
- proper procedures for shipment and
storage;
- pollution prevention;
- release, emission;
- waste generation management;
- regulatory reporting requirements.
Because of the US Government’s
broad base of trading partners, both nationally
and internationally, the UN/CEFACT organization
was a natural choice as a forum for developing
an electronic exchange format. By utilizing
a global trade exchange, the Government
hopes to work more effectively and efficiently
with all its trading partners.
e-Tendering
The objective of this
work is the standardization of business
processes, transactions and business information
entities in the field of electronic tendering/bidding
across industries. Version 1.0 focuses
especially on the Works domain. The Goods
and Services domains will be included
in Version 2.0.
This document was developed by an eTendering
project within TBG6 (Architecture, Engineering
and Construction) under Mr. Jun-Ichi YAMASHITA
(Fujita Business System Inc. / Japan)
as the project leader, and with Czech
Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Republic
of Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom
as participating member countries.
For further information,
please contact:
Mr. Jean Kubler
Acting Chief, Global Trade Solutions
Branch
UNECE Trade Development and Timber
Division
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0) 22 917 2774
Fax: +41 (0) 22 917 0037
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.uncefact.org
Ref: ECE/TRADE/05/P02