Good week last week

We had a terrific week last week with our first OAGIS Release 10 development meetings.

With the economy as it is, we tried using online meetings with great success. We met for 3 hours each day on architecture issues, and then we met for three hours on content discussion.

Everyone was very cooperative and disciplined, with constructive discussions on substantive issues, like how to deploy the CCTS 3.0 standard, or how to define lot serial to handle both discrete and process manufacturing.

We have a long way to go, of course, but it was a great start.

OAGIS and STEP Convergence

The OAGIS and STEP community started an effort last year to look at ways they could harmonize the two standards with the goal of simplifying the task for the end user, and to increase interoperability as well.

We met with representatives from ISO TC184 SC4, PDES, Inc., OASIS PLCS, and OMG PLS, and NIST. We met several times by phone and also face to face since early 2008.

During that time we spent a great deal of effort looking at each others standard, and trying to understand design patterns and approaches.

We also identified to data objects to start with, the Bill of Material (BOM) and the Item. It is always an interesting effort to learn each other's communities terminology.

Recently we published a very complete report on our approach and results so far, and I recommened that you read it if this is an area you are interested in. You can download from our website here.

OAGIS Release 10 Working Group Starts Today

In May of this year I started talking about a next generation release of OAGIS we are planning.

We have our first working meeting today to start the OAGIS Release 10 efforts in earnest. As I stated in my May 2009 post, this is a strategic release for the purpose of bringing together many industries under one data standard, and to implement the important harmonized technologies from UN/CEFACT.

This release of OAGIS is the one to eventually supercede the Chem eStandards, thus fulfilling the intent of CIDX to build cross industry standards for the Chemical Industries to use.

In addition to the Chemical Industry, the other industries we are targeting explicitly include Automotive, Automotive Retail, Aerospace and Defense, High Tech, and Agriculture. This list will probably grow over time.

In my next post I will talk more about the UN/CEFACT technologies we are planning to implement.

Our new Resources Downloags Webpage

We have been working hard for the past two weeks on a resources downloads page for our members and users.

This page contains formal OAGi White Papers, member contributions, and even contributions from non-member OAGIS users.

Some of the items available for download include but are not limited to:

OAGi Data Management White Paper, GetShow Usage White Paper, an extensions guide, BOD flattener software, and even a link to the OAGIS Developers Guide for BizTalk on the Microsoft website.

We welcome you to visit and contribute your work as well. You can visit our Resources Webpage here.

AgGateway is joining our Community

We have recently completed and signed our Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with AgGateway Corporation. AgGateway will be joining our Chemical Industry Council.

The AgGateway (www.aggateway.org) organization brings the very large and diverse agriculture community to the OAGi community. This community includes BASF, Bayer Cropscience, Land O Lakes, Monsanto, The American Feed Industry Association, and many others.

The diversity of this community will add greatly to our efforts to build a true cross industry data standard. Right now this community uses our Chem eStandards, but the future will bring this community into the OAGIS Release 10 world.

This is a very exciting time.