OAGi CEO Blog

The Cloud Renews Interest in Enterprise Integration

2012-02-13T06:11:00.000-08:00

David Linthicum wrote an interesting article in his blog lastFriday, February 10, 2012. In thearticle he makes a reference to the fact that it feels to him like we are backin 1999 when enterprise application integration (EAI) rose to popularity.

The movement to the cloud requires the same architecturaldiscipline for application integration that organizations were discovering backthen.

That is why OAGi has a big emphasis on publicizing the rolethat OAGIS can play in improving integration efforts in the cloud. Besides banging the drum for the important ofdata standards like OAGIS in cloud computing, the membership has a WorkingGroup that is working on improvements to the OAGIS Specification to ensuresupport for cloud requirements now and moving into the future.

For more information on this working Group, I invite you tovisit my blog post from last week here.

The original David Linthicum blog is here.

First Mobile, Cloud, JSON working Group met this week

2012-02-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

We had a very good turnout and real enthusiasm at our first Mobile, Cloud, JSON Working Group Meeting. The initiative is not tied to any specific OAGIS Release and covers many topics that are all related to each other.

The planned scope of this Working Group includes but is not limited to:

– JSON based instances of the OAGIS BODs

– A JSON tool converter

– JSON Naming and Design Rules similar to the current OAGIS XSD Naming and Design Rules

– REST processing guide for OAGIS

– Changes to the OAGIS BOD architecture to provide improved support for cloud-based processing. For example, in the BOD Application Area. This could include additions from the current UN/CEFACT Business Data Header project

– Mobile Business Case Studies as examples

– Working with Solution Providers to support OAGIS JSON based apps on mobile devices

– OAGIS Apps for mobile devices from OAGi and it’s members

There is no set date for any of these deliverable, as there needs to be some research done for some of this, and these topics will continue to evolve.

Stay tuned for upcoming events.

Open Applications Group (OAGi) Announces Mobile Business Initiative

2012-01-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

We just announced an exciting Mobile Business Initiative. The full text of the press release is just below:

Atlanta, Georgia- January 26, 2012

OAGi (www.oagi.org) today announced it has launched aMobile Business Initiative to improve the ability of enterprises to extendtheir business data interoperability all the way to the edges of theirorganizations.

OAGi plans to do this by addingtechnology to the OAGIS standard to better support Mobile Business and CloudComputing, and to provide support for Java Script Object Notation (JSON), themost common data expression technology in this new and growing area of businesssolutions.

When OAGi was formed 16 years ago, thevision was to provide a business process based data exchange language for B2B,Enterprise Integration, and Enterprise to Execution Systems. With the large andaccelerating adoption of mobile devices, coupled with the power of the CloudService Brokerage, it is now possible to provide industrial strengthapplications with full connectivity to all edges of the enterprise, as well asto customers and suppliers.

“Imagine if a worker communicates thereceipt of goods on their mobile device and the receipt goes directly into theenterprise using the same data definitions that the enterprise currently usesfor their Canonical Data Model and for doing business with their partners, withno loss of fidelity,” said David Connelly, CEO of the Open Applications, Group.

“And then the Cloud Brokerage Servicenotifies the supplier of the receipt who triggers an invoice to be sent, thusenabling the enterprise to have a fully connected supply chain from end toend.”

PreventingSilos in the Cloud

Recently, David Linthicum warned in his Cloud Computing Blog that without standards, organizationsare in danger of recreating the old silos that were built up inside theenterprise.

The concept of the “Canonical Model” inthe enterprise has become a best practice for enterprise interoperability andnow these best practices need to be brought into the cloud. If the CanonicalModel is left behind when implementing in the cloud, it may diminish the valueof IT by recreating the old “spaghetti diagrams” that so many organizationshad.

In October 2011, OAGi announced thattheir Architecture Council is leading a Cloud Computing Initiative and supportfor JSON and now that initiative is being combed into the concept of MobileBusiness, the power of Cloud Computing, and JSON technology as a singleinitiative.

The Architecture Council is looking atadditions or revisions to the OAGIS Specification to ensure that the vision ofMobile Business harnessing Cloud Computing Brokerage Services will enableenterprises to out-innovate their competition, make employees more efficient,improve customer service and control costs.

"Devices coupled with pervasivenetworks are driving the need for exposing cloud-based data services to enable'anywhere', 'any time' computing in the ecosystem," added AbhijeetRanadive, Enterprise B2B Architect, Cisco Systems (CSCO). "APIs thatenable this integration paradigm will need to have a standardized light payloadformat and JSON fits the requirement. Defining OAGi standard in a JSON formatis a way to bring together two best in class solutions to meet the informationneeds."

You can read the press release online here.

AboutOAGi:

OAGi is a member-based non-for-profitopen standards organization focused on building business process based dataexchange standards for Mobile Business, Cloud Computing, Business to Business,and Enterprise interoperability.

For more information and to downloadthe OAGIS Specification for free go to http://www.oagi.org, or contact them directly throughemail at inquiry@oagi.org.

Call for participation for our upcoming E-Invoicing Working Group

2012-01-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

We issued a call forparticipation for our upcoming OAGIS X E-Invoicing Sub-Working Group today.

This Sub-Working Group is opento all OAGi Members in good standing. The goals, scope and time-frame arejust below. If you are not yet a member, we welcome you to learn more here or contact us here.

We will be meeting on everyWednesday from 1 - 3 PM Eastern US time starting on Wednesday, February 1,2011.

Please let us know yourintention to participate by responding to us here. The first meeting will beused to review the scope and get agreement from the team.

You do not need to sign theProject Definition if your organization has a signature on file for theOAGIS X Working Group.

Thank you and look for theWebEx announcement early next week.

___________________________________________________

OAGIS X Sub Working Group - Invoicing

Group Definition and Scope

Review and update all processes, messages and details (components) needed to address increasingly diverse methods of invoicing worldwide. The team will determine the processes they need supported, but a list of possible processes include but are not limited to:
- E-Invoicing
- Batch Invoicing
- Interoperating with EDI
- Sub-Contracting
- Inter-company
- Customer and Supplier view of Invoicing
Group will not address payments except in the effect on the invoicing process
Group will build on previous work with the possibility of requesting the reopening of such work if needed - but leaving actual deliverables to those groups
Deliverables:
- A Master Scenario that will be used to guide sub-processes creation
- List of all messages needed and their description
- Updates to individual message content and component content as needed
- Identification of any new messages required but not the construction of them.
These will be deferred to another future Working Group

Big Year Coming Up in 2012

2012-01-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

OAGi News - Big Year ComingUp in 2012

OAGi ended the year with a great Plenary Session inRedwood City on November 16 and 17 with a lot of excitement around our MobileBusiness and Cloud Computing initiatives. Our topics included:

- The Mobile, Cloud, and JSON Initiative for OAGi
- Special Presentation from Oracle
- OAGIS Case Studies
- OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities
- Mobile Business and Cloud Computing Panel "B2B with Mobile and theCloud."

Remember OAGi members can download the presentationsand the videos on the members only portion of the OAGi web site here and non-members can download thepresentations here.

You can also see some pictures taken during themeetings here.

Webinars coming in 2012

We will be conducting several educational webinars in2012, including our first planned webinar entitled, “Best Practices forExtending OAGIS BODs.” There will be anannouncement on this webinar soon.

All webinars will be recorded and will be madeavailable to our members for free and to non-members for a nominal fee.

OAGi is co-sponsoring theannual ARC World Industry Forum Feb. 6 – 9 in Orlando

OAGi is co-sponsoring the upcoming 16^thAnnual ARC WorldIndustry Forum to be held February 6-9 (time is running out, make yourarrangements now) in Orlando, Florida. Thisyear’s forum has many executive speakers and OAGi members are entitled to a 50%discount from the meeting fee. Some ofthe topics at this year’s forum include:

- MobilitySolutions for Industry

- CloudComputing for Industry

- SupplyChain Integrity and Brand Protection

- Collaborationand Social Media

- OperationalExcellence for Power Generation

- SustainableOperational Excellence Solutions

- LatestInnovations in Virtual Production

We inviteyou to go to the website to learn more and register. The website is here.

OAGi Website is now fullysupports Mobile Devices

We recently upgraded the OAGi website technology tofully support your mobile devices. Weinvite you to try us out on your mobile device here.

OAGIS Release 9.6 is comingin the first half of 2012.

The scope of this upcoming releaseincludes results from following Working Groups:

- Export Compliance Work Group
- Cisco Configuration updates to Quote and Purchase Order.
- iBaseT Manufacturing Nouns
- Oracle Supply Chain Management contribution

We are planning a 45 day Public Review Period with a 45 day internal reviewafter that. This release is schedule tobe shipped in second quarter of 2012. Stay tuned for more information on this upcoming OAGIS release.

OAGIS Release 10 workcontinues with five ongoing initiatives

The OAGIS Release Ten (OAGIS X) Working Groups continue to meeton a regular basis and we encourage your participation. We can use all the smart people we canget! The meetings include:

Architecture – Every Friday, 9 AM to 11 AM Eastern Time
Catalog to Return Content – Wednesday, 1:00 PM to 3 PM EDT
HR Content – Every other Thursday, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EDT
Chemical Industry Gap Analysis – Three Thursdays a month, 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Context – Tuesday, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM EDT

All of these meeting are visible on our OAGi Calendar on the members part ofthe web site here. You need to be logged in to view the memberscalendar.

All OAGi members are invited to join any of these groups. If you are interested in joining any of theseWorking Groups, please contact me here.

Meeting Calendar for 2012

Stay tuned for final dates for these upcoming meetings in2012. We are also planning several newwebinars, details coming soon.

Policy Board Meeting – Planned	April 24, 2012	NIST	Gaithersburg, Maryland
Plenary and Working Groups - Planned	April 25 - 26, 2012	NIST	Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Policy Board Meeting Planned	November 13, 2012	Oracle	Redwood Shores, CA, USA
Plenary and Working Groups Completed	November 14 - 15, 2012	Oracle	Redwood Shores, CA, USA.

European Meeting

We are working determining these dates and will announce them as soon as possible.

TBD

Resuming the OAGIS X Context Calls January 3, 2012

2011-12-08T06:00:00.001-08:00

I am pleased to announce thatJim Wilson from our Chemical Industry and Agricultural Industry communities has stepped up to lead the OAGi Context Working Group.

He will be succeeding ScottHinkelman, who has led it very well these past months. Unfortunately, Scott hasbeen reassigned to other duties so we thank him for his efforts and wish himwell.

This Working Group has beenworking to develop an OAGIS X implementation of the UN/CEFACT ContextMethodology.

We will be resuming ourmeetings on Tuesdays from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time starting January 3rd.If you have already signed the OAGIS X Project Definition, you do not need tosign another.

Please write us here if you are interested in moreinformation.

OAGi November 16 Plenary Videos now available

2011-12-01T08:19:00.001-08:00

I am pleased to announce that the WebEx video and audio recordings from our OAGi Plenary Meeting on November 16 in Redwood City, California are now available.

You can view the agenda and download the presentations and the video recordings on the members section of our website.

You must be logged in to access the webpage. Please let me know if you have trouble logging in.

The link to the webpage is here.

Thank you for your continued support

OAGi Plenary Keynote Presentation now Available

2011-11-28T13:49:00.001-08:00

I am pleased to announce that the Keynote Presentation from our November 15 Plenary Meeting in Redwood City, California is now available.

Special thanks to Jean-Claude Monney of Microsoft for doing the presentation and then including the text of the presentation along with the slides. All of the other presetnation are also available as well.

You can review the agenda and download any of the presentations here.

Also, stay tuned for our upcoming video announcement. We will soon be making several of the session available to our members.

Thank you for your continued support.

Great Plenary Meeting last week

2011-11-21T06:28:00.001-08:00

Our Plenary Meeting last week was a tremendous success. We had a greatcrowd in the room and 20+ more persons attending remotely.

We also had a very exciting Agenda and now the presentationsare available on our web site.

HIGHLIGHTSINCLUDED

-Using OAGIS in the Cloud
-Special Presentation from Oracle
-OAGIS Case Studies
-OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities
-Cloud Computing Panel "B2B and Cloud Computing."

Youcan view the agenda download the presentations here.

OAGi Webinar next Wednesday, November 9

2011-11-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that the OAGi Chemical Industry Council is sponsoring the third in their 2011 series of 3 webinars on OAGi and OAGIS.

You are invited to attend this 35 minute webinar entitled "Introduction to OAGIS". The webinar will take place on Wednesday, November 9 at Noon in the Eastern US Time Zone.

This webinar will feature Mike Rowell, OAGi Chief Architect, and he will be presenting a high level overview of the architecture within the OAGIS Open Standard.

This webinar is open to all, members and non-members alike and there is no cost.

You can register for this webinar for free here.

Thank you and we look forward to your attendance.

OAGi announces Cloud Computing Initiative and support for Java Script Object Notation (JSON)

2011-10-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that today OAGi announced it haslaunched a Cloud Computing Initiative to ensure that the Open ApplicationsGroup Integration Specification (OAGIS) enables complete support for Cloud Computing.

The Cloud Computing Initiative is led by the Architecture Council within OAGiand is looking at additions or revisions that OAGi members think is importantto continue to evolve the specification. As part of the Cloud Computinginitiative, OAGi has taken a decision to support Java Script Object Notation(JSON) as a data exchange format for the data exchange data model defined byOAGIS. OAGi has released a Position Paper on this support for JSON and it isavailable for free today on the OAGi web site at http://www.oagi.org.

Over a 15 year period of time, OAGi has supported several technical expressionsof their data exchange data model. In 1996, when the first release of the OpenApplication Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) was published, theexpression form of the data exchange data model was a proprietary meta dataformat invented by OAGi.

Since then, many improved forms of data expression have been developed and theOAGIS technology evolved to support XML Document Type Definitions (DTD) in 1987and then XML Schema (XSD) in 2002. In 2005, OAGi elected to evolve OAGIS tosupport a stricter Schema expression as defined by the UN/CEFACT Naming andDesign Rules (NDR) and Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS). Thischange again improved the grammar expressions in OAGIS, reduced ambiguity, andimproved both intra and inter supply chain interoperability.

“Oracle (ORCL) applauds the recognition of JSON by the Open Applications Group,Inc. (OAGi) as a data exchange format that complements EDI and XML for dataintegration. The canonical OAGIS data model expressed in XML and carriedthrough in JSON adds the ability to enable end to end integration – integrationfrom the back office applications to integration on the glass,” said MichaelRowell, Oracle Standards Architect. “Using JSON, data from heterogeneousapplications, clouds, and partners are presented cohesively so that end userscan better perform their job functions.”

“Devices coupled with pervasive networks are driving the need for exposingcloud-based data services to enable ‘any where’, ‘any time’ computing in theecosystem,” added Abhijeet Ranadive, Enterprise B2B Architect, Cisco Systems(CSCO). “APIs that enable this integration paradigm will need to have astandardized light payload format and JSON fits the requirement. Defining OAGistandard in a JSON format is a way to bring together two best in classsolutions to meet the information needs.”

OAGi News for October 2011

2011-10-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

Our October 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can read it in its entirety here.

ChemicalIndustry Standards Direction Statement

From Tom Fannon, Chair, OAGIS ChemicalIndustry Council. (In shortened form. You can read the entire message in the newsletter itself.)

When CIDX was disbanded the ChemeStandards ownership migrated into OAGi and there were funds allocated toassist in efforts to migrate the Chem eStandards into OAGIS 10. The other work within CIDX was to be migrated intothe ACC ChemITC eBusiness Networking Team.

This work is almost complete. I want to thank the folks from Dow, Rhodia,Monsanto, and Elemica for providing many hours of time and insight over thepast year. Jim Wilson has provided an enormous amount of patience andguidance to the group that has allowed us to get where we are today.

Elemica also was invaluable as they provided high level message usagestatistics that allowed the group to only concentrate on the used messages toaccomplish our mapping exercise. As we plodded through our messages, we alsorelied on the folks from OAGi to enlighten us on where the best fit for ourelements were.

The mapping work began in 2009 andextended throughout 2010 and 2011. CIDX monies paid for the ChemicalIndustry Council within OAGi where this work was conducted. We budgetedfor three years of effort and as we were coming to the end of 2011, it wasclear to me that we needed to find a way to extend the work for just a littlewhile longer to ensure that there was output for our industry that would showwhere and how the Chem eStandards mapped into OAGIS 10.

We needed a little more money for that. Iknew that we were paying the ACC for managing our meeting as an eBusinessNetworking Team. That amounted to arranging the meeting, reviewing the agenda,publishing the minutes and that was about it. This was not a good use of ourfunds. I did not see a lot of value andapproached our ACC sponsor Gary Dick about trying to take the remaining fundsand use them to secure a time extension for the Chemical Industry Council inOAGi.

My thought was that by the end of 2012 our work will have been complete. Gary was okay with the idea and I proceeded down that path and am intalks with OAGi to determine what the Chemical Industry Council dues structurewill be for 2012. My personal opinion is that involvement with OAGi onthe various sub teams is an excellent way to keep aware of trends.

Discussions during Procure to Pay meeting about what team participants fromMerck, GSX, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and SAP are faced with as they attempt tointegrate with customers or internal applications have been eye opening to saythe least. Most definitely a window into the messaging future. We need a way to foster the communication ofthis type of information for our industry.

I am very aware of budget constraints and the current state of the economy, yetI still am a believer in maintaining a networking community within our Industryon eBusiness activities. I think ithelps us all in understanding new trends in message standards, what certainindustry segments are doing with messages, and ways to improve our supply chainefficiency. So I created a group withinLinkedIn called "Chemical Industry eBusiness Council". If you want to be a member send me an emailresponse. I will add you to the list. Tome it is a far less expensive way to maintain a network.

Thanks for all of your time and pleasebe on the lookout from time to time for messages from myself or Jim Wilson onOAGi related to our work on migrating the CIDX Chem eStandards. We will beseeking your input as we get closer finalizing our mapping exercise.

REMINDER – Just Four Weeks until our Fall Plenary and WorkingGroups Meetings

If you have not already registered, weinvite you to register for our upcoming Plenary and Working Group sessions tobe held Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17, 2011, at Oracle'sConference Center in Redwood City, California.

We have a very exciting Agenda soplease feel free to forward this email to anyone you think may be interested.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

· Using OAGIS in the Cloud

· Special Presentation from Oracle

· OAGIS Case Studies

· OAGi Updates and briefings on Councilactivities

· Cloud Computing Panel "B2B and Cloud Computing."

You can learn more, view the agenda and register on our website here.

Update yourself on the OAGIS Implementers Page.

We have launched a webpage that enables users of OAGIS to registerand tell the world how they have implemented OAGIS. This will give the peoplewho have worked to save their company money and time an opportunity to get thecredit they deserve. This also provides a way for solution providers to let endusers know they support OAGIS and how they support it.

We welcome you to go to http://oagisusers.oagi.org or also you can accessit at www.oagi.org.

Trade Compliance Working Group nearing completion

The OAGi Trade Compliance Working Group led by Vivian Javier ofCDC Software has made tremendous progress and is nearing completion of theirConstruction Phase within the OAGi Development Methodology process. This Working Group collaborated with theHR-XML Consortium to share content and is planning to reuse some of that HR-XMLcontent in the final version of their work.

The content from this Working Group will be shipped in OAGIS Release 9.6, whichis scheduled for the second quarter of 2012. Stay tuned for more information on this upcoming OAGIS release.

OAGIS Release 10 work continues with five ongoing initiatives

The OAGIS Release Ten (OAGIS X) Working Groups continue to meeton a regular basis and we encourage your participation. We can use all the smart people we canget!

All of these meeting are visible on our OAGi Calendar on the members part ofthe web site here. You need to be logged in to view the memberscalendar.

All OAGi members are invited to join any of these groups. Please contact me here.

Chemical Industry Standards Direction Statement

2011-10-18T05:27:00.000-07:00

To the ChemicalIndustry Standards Community from Tom Fannon, Chair, OAGIS ChemicalIndustry Council;

When CIDX was disbanded the ChemeStandards ownership migrated into OAGi and there were funds allocated to assistin efforts to migrate the Chem eStandards into OAGIS 10. The other work within CIDX wasto be migrated into the ACC ChemITC eBusiness Networking Team.

The Chem eStandards when used by ACCmember companies are used in various forms. Ashland uses 2.0 for orders and 4.0for invoices which is very common. We have not seen the need to migrateto 5.0 yet and until there is a business case to do so we probably will not. However we are concerned about some of the unique features of our supplychain that were well defined by the Order to Cash Teams over the years in CIDXthat must make the transition from a industry specific standard to a globalstandard.

Therefore, while we as an industry may not be implementing OAGIS 10, there wasa need to map the high quality Chem eStandards into OAGIS 10 for our industry.

This work is almost complete. Iwant to thank the folks from Dow, Rhodia, Monsanto, and Elemica for providingmany hours of time and insight over the past year. Jim Wilson hasprovided an enormous amount of patience and guidance to the group that hasallowed us to get where we are today.

Elemica also was invaluable as they provided high level message usagestatistics that allowed the group to only concentrate on the used messages toaccomplish our mapping exercise. As we plodded through our messages, we alsorelied on the folks from OAGi to enlighten us on where the best fit for ourelements were.

The mapping work began in 2009 andextended throughout 2010 and 2011. CIDX monies paid for the ChemicalIndustry Council within OAGi where this work was conducted. We budgetedfor three years of effort and as we were coming to the end of 2011, it wasclear to me that we needed to find a way to extend the work for just a littlewhile longer to ensure that there was output for our industry that would showwhere and how the Chem eStandards mapped into OAGIS 10.

We needed a little more money for that. I knew that we were paying theACC for managing our meeting as a eBusiness Networking Team. Thatamounted to arranging the meeting, reviewing the agenda, publishing the minutesand that was about it. This was not a good use of our funds. I did notsee a lot of value and approached our ACC sponsor Gary Dick about trying totake the remaining funds and use them to secure a time extension for theChemical Industry Council in OAGi.

My thought was that by the end of 2012 our work will have been complete. Gary was okay with the idea and I proceeded down that path and am intalks with OAGi to determine what the Chemical Industry Council dues structurewill be for 2012. My personal opinion is that involvement with OAGi onthe various sub teams is an excellent way to keep aware of trends.

Discussions during Procure to Pay meeting about what team participants fromMerck, GSX, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and SAP are faced with as they attempt tointegrate with customers or internal applications have been eye opening to saythe least. Most definitely a window into the messaging future. We need a way to foster the communication of this type of information forour industry.

So while we have done a great job ofworking on the messaging part of our team's charter, we have struggled tocreate a community for our industry. Perhaps it was the time commitmentor the opinion that our current message versions are good enough or the lack ofsupport within our companies, it all added up and I failed to create the typeof network we had within CIDX. I have approached some others to solicitsome ideas on how to continue a networking team with little or no cost.

I am very aware of budget constraints and the current state of the economy, yetI still am a believer in maintaining a networking community within our Industryon eBusiness activities. I think it helps us all in understanding newtrends in message standards, what certain industry segments are doing withmessages, and ways to improve our supply chain efficiency. So I created agroup within LinkedIn called "Chemical Industry eBusiness Council". If you want to be a member send me an email response. I will add you tothe list. To me it is a far less expensive way to maintain a network.

Thanks for all of your time and pleasebe on the lookout from time to time for messages from myself or Jim Wilson onOAGi related to our work on migrating the CIDX Chem eStandards. We will beseeking your input as we get closer finalizing our mapping exercise.

Feel free to contact me with anyquestions.

Chair, OAGi Chemical Industry Council
Manager eBusiness
Global Supply Chain * Ashland Inc.
tfannon@ashland.com

How Standards Boost Business

2011-10-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

There is a tremendous new website resource available to all called “StandardsBoost Business.”

This website is hosted by the American National Standards Institute and does anexcellent job of describing how standards boost business by streamlining,speeding up, and saving money for organizations.

The website describes a concept called StrategicStandardization. Thewebsite goes on to tell us that according to the U.S. Department ofCommerce, standards and conformity assessment impact more than 80% of globalcommodity trade. From design and manufacturing to distribution and marketing,all aspects of your industry’s products and services are affected at some pointby standardization.

One case study helps prove this as the U.S. Department of Defense is projecting$789 million in cost avoidance over just one of their programs. The reason putforth is they focused on parts standardization and process standardization.

The website also has a section that describes the value of standards toindustry, consumers, and government.

I invite you to visit this website to learn more about why we do what we dohere at the Open Applications Group. Thewebsite url is: http://www.standardsboostbusiness.org

OAGi Context Architecture is taking shape

2011-09-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

We had an excellent meeting yesterday to review an emerging architecture document for OAGi’s implementation of the UN/CEFACT Context Methodology (UCM). UCM is in ODP 6, which is the implementation verification stage of their document methodology.

The project Chair, Scott Hinkelman, reviewed a graphic which shows the scope planned for OAGi’s implementation of UCM. It is mostly self-explanatory. The graphic is just below.

Exciting New Agenda for Novembers Meeting just Published

2011-09-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

We have recently published an exciting new version of our Agenda for our upcoming plenary session on November 16, 2011 hosted by Oracle.

OAGi continues with a Cloud theme and will be speaking more about the OAGi Cloud initiative. In addition, we have confirmed speakers from GXS, Cisco, Microsoft, and Vortx.

We are also planning a panel discussion on the effect of Cloud Computing on B2B to close out the day. Our panel will be made up of our speakers who are experts in their fields.

We invite you to view the entire agenda and register for the meeting on the OAGi website here.

OAGi Newsletter for September 2011 Published

2011-09-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Our September 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can read it in its entirety here.

OAGIS Users Website Launched

We have launched a webpage that enables users of OAGIS to register and tell the world how they have implemented OAGIS. This will give the people who have worked to save their company money and time an opportunity to get the credit they deserve. This also provides a way for solution providers to let end users know they support OAGIS and how they support it.

We welcome you to go to http://oagisusers.oagi.org or also you can access it at www.oagi.org.

OAGIS Release 9.5.1 is published

We are pleased to announce the availability of OAGIS Release 9.5.1. Thank you to all who gave us your feedback so we could make OAGIS better. This release corrects issues found by our members and users.

Confirm BOD Specification now available

We are pleased to announce the availability of a newly revised version of our Confirm BOD Specification. This normative document describes the best practices for implementing the Confirm BOD and is based on many years of the community’s experience.

The document is free to all OAGi members and can be downloaded here. You must be logged in as a member to access the members only portion of the website.

Non-members may download the document for just US $19.95. You can write to us and we will send you the document.

Revised BOD Architecture Document now available

I am pleased to announce that OAGi has posted a revised version of the BOD Architecture White Paper. This White paper ships with OAGIS Release 9.5, our most current release and is also available for free on our Resources web page here.

Fall Plenary and Working Groups Meeting now open for Registration

Registration is now open for our fall Plenary and Working Group sessions to be held Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17, 2011, at Oracle's Conference Center in Redwood City, California.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting on our website here.

Updated OAGIS BOD Architecture White Paper now available

2011-09-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that OAGi has posted a revised version of the BOD Architecture White Paper. This White paper ships with OAGIS Release 9.5, our most current release and is also available for free on our Resources web page here.

We want to emphasize that no changes were made to the BOD Architecture. This White Paper improves the detail, the readability and the graphics to help the reader better understand the BOD Architecture, how to use it, and what benefits it provides to the user of OAGIS.

Many thanks to the OAGi members and Staff for this terrific effort.

Confirm BOD Specification Now Available

2011-09-06T08:33:00.001-07:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of a newly revised version of our Confirm BOD Specification. This normative document describes the best practices for implementing the Confirm BOD and is based on many years of the community’s experience.

The document is free to all OAGi members and can be downloaded here. You must be logged in as a member to access the members only portion of the website.

Non-members may download the document for just US $19.95. You can write to us and we will send you the document.

Many thanks to all who contributed to this Specification.

OAGIS Release 9.5.1 is now available

2011-08-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of OAGIS Release 9.5.1. Thank you to all who gave us your feedback so we could make OAGIS better. This release corrects issues found by our members and users. The update includes:

1. Updated navigation for viewing the OAGIS Scenarios. The navigation has been improved to make it easier to use.

2. The use of local elements in the WarrantyClaim Noun. This release uses global elements for this content.

3. Additions to the Dimensions component were not correctly implemented, these have been corrected with this release.

4. The Change Response Code was incorrectly using the ResponseActionCodeContentType. This was changed to use the ResponseCodeContentType.

5. Added UserArea to component ActualResources.

6. Added DebitCreditCode to LedgerAmountGroup so that Financial Nouns may indicate whether the associated Amounts are Debits or Credits.

7. Add attribute type the Packaging component.

8. Updated the Example Instances so that they validate.

Please Note:

The component Event makes use of StartDateTime and EndDateTime as local elements in order to separate the Date and Time into separate elements. This was not changed to use the existing global elements because of the effect this would have on backward compatibility.

You can download this release for free on our website here. Please remember you need to be logged in.

Remember, OAGi does Training and Services to help you implement and use OAGIS to your greatest advantage. Contact us here.

Thanks to all for helping make this happen.

Introduction to OAGIS Video Now Available

2011-08-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce the availability of the video of the second in a series of webinars sponsored by our Chemical Industry Council. The first one was entitled, "An Introduction to OAGi", and this one is entitled, "An Introduction to OAGIS."

The webinar is done by David Connelly, the CEO of the Open Applications Group.

The video provides an overview of the Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS), how people are using it, and also who we know is using the standard.

The video is available to all for free on our website here.

OAGi News for August 2011 just published

2011-08-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Our August 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can download it in its entirety here.

For regular updates of activities and happenings, you can follow us on Facebook here, LinkedIn here, and Twitter here. Once Google+ announces their offering for companies to set up a profile, we will set up there as well.

Remember, if you are not yet a member of OAGi, we encourage you to look into the many benefits of membership, including our large and growing library of members-only content. You can review the all of the benefits of OAGi membership here.

Introduction to OAGIS Video Now Available

A video of our August 17 webinar entitled, “An Introduction to OAGIS” is now available. The webinar is done by David Connelly, our CEO.

The video provides an overview of what is in the standard, what is a Scenario, and what is a Business Object Document (BOD). It also covers how the OAGIS Standard is being used today.

The video is available to all for free on our website here.

New Survey Launched August 17 – How are you using OAGIS?

We are pleased to announce the availability of our 2011 survey, "How are you using OAGIS?" We did a version of this survey in 2010 and so we are repeating it this year as well.

We welcome you to participate in this short survey so that we may serve you better. You can go directly to the survey here.

Thank you to the members and staff who put this together.

ebXML and AS4 with OAGIS BODs video is now available

We are pleased to announce the availability of the video recording of our exciting joint OAGi and OASIS webinar highlighting OAGIS BODs using the AS4 profile from the ebXML Messaging Service Technical Committee.

This webinar includes an overview of the new AS4 profile and then there are several interoperability demos. Overall, the webinar lasts approximately one hour. Cisco Systems, one of our OAGi Policy Board members, is one of the participants of this webinar.

You can view or download the video here. The download is courtesy of our collaboration with OASIS.

Fall Plenary and Working Groups Meeting now open for registration

Registration is now open for our fall Plenary and Working Group sessions to be held Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17, 2011, at Oracle's Conference Center in Redwood City, California.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting just below.

Highlights Include

· Using OAGIS in the Cloud

· OAGIS Case Studies

· OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities

· Cloud Computing Panel “B2B and Cloud Computing.”

You can visit our meeting website here and see the most current agenda here.

Register Now – Everyone is Welcome

You can register for the meeting on our web site here.

All OAGi members attend for free, but you do not have to be an OAGi member to attend. Individual members and non-members pay only a $275.00 fee to cover expenses.

How are you using OAGIS? Please let us know.

2011-08-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of our 2011 survey "How is OAGIS used?"

We did a version of this survey in 2010 and I have included the summary results below.

We welcome you to participate in this short survey so that we may serve you better. You can go directly to the survey here.

Thank you to the members and staff who put this together.

INVITATION TO REGISTER - OAGi MEETING NOVEMBER 16 - 17 in REDWOOD CITY, CA

2011-08-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to invite you to attend our upcoming Plenary and Working Group sessions to be held Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17, 2011, at Oracle's Conference Center in Redwood City, California.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting just below.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

· Using OAGIS in the Cloud

· OAGIS Case Studies

· OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities

· Cloud Computing Panel “B2B and Cloud Computing.”

You can visit our meeting website here and see the most current agenda here.

REGISTER NOW - EVERYONE IS WELCOME

You can register for the meeting on our web site here.

All OAGi members attend for free, but you do not have to be an OAGi member to attend. Individual members and non-members pay only a $275.00 fee to cover expenses.

OAGIS Introduction Webinar Announced

2011-08-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce our next webinar coming up on Wednesday, August 17 at noon Eastern US Time.

In this 30 minute webinar you will see a high level overview of the OAGIS Standard, what it is comprised of and how people use it. This webinar will only be slightly technical and is intended to be a good management overview.

This webinar is open to all, members and non-members alike and there is no cost.

You can register for this webinar for free here.

Thank you and we look forward to your attendance.

OAGi Joining Collaboration on Remittance Standards

2011-08-02T07:35:00.001-07:00

OAGi has a long history of collaborating with other standards and government organizations to help build fewer duplicate standards and clarify the standards landscape for our users.

We have worked with UN/CEFACT, ISO, CIDX, AIAG, STAR, HR-XML, OMG, OASIS, ISA, and many others over the past 15 years. We are using standards from many of these standards organizations in our OAGIS standard and many of those organizations are using OAGIS technology in their standards. This is a fundamental principle that we apply when making decisions for OAGi. All of our fundamental principles are on our website here.

OAGi was part of a team a few years ago that built the core payment kernel that became part of ISO20022. This core payment kernel became part of the payment standard in OAGi, IFX, SWIFT, and TWIST.

Now we are joining a new effort to collaborate on a core remittance advice standard working with IFX, SWIFT and possibly X9 and NACHA. OAGi currently has a remittance advice standard and plans to use that as input to this worldwide collaboration.

IFX recently announce a press release on this effort and you can read it in its entirety here.

OAGIS BODs using ebXML Messaging version 3.0 and AS4

2011-07-26T08:25:00.001-07:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of the video recording of our exciting joint OAGi and OASIS webinar highlighting OAGIS BODs using the AS4 profile from the ebXML Messaging Service Technical Committee.

This webinar includes an overview of the new AS4 profile and then there are several interoperability demos. Overall, the webinar lasts approximately one hour.

Cisco systems, one of our OAGi Policy Board members, is one of the participants of this webinar.

You can view or download the video here. The download is courtesy of our collaboration with OASIS.

OAGi Newsletter for July 2011 Just Published

2011-07-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

Our July 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can download it in its entirety here.

For regular updates of activities and happenings, you can follow us on Facebook here, LinkedIn here, and Twitter here.

Remember, if you are not yet a member of OAGi, we encourage you to look into the many benefits of membership, including our large and growing library of members-only content. You can review the all of the benefits of OAGi membership here.

OAGi Introduction Video Available

The video covers our beginnings 17 years ago and covers our scope and approach as well as our current activities and plans and is available to all for free on our website here.

Trade Compliance webinar video now available

We recently released a recording of a webinar that OAGi hosted that features a trade compliance expert from one of our members, CDC Software.

If you are a member of OAGi, you are entitled to access this content as a privilege of membership. You can watch it online below or download it in its entirety here. You must be logged in to access it.

Non-members can receive this video for US $19.95. Please write to us here if you would like to purchase the video.

Milestone in OAGIS Release 10 (OAGIS X) Development

One of our long time contributors, working with our team of member architects, constructed and executed conversion scripts to convert our existing OAGIS Release 9.5 XSD source base to the new conventions chosen for OAGIS X.

This gives the Working Group a solid base to begin making the actual changes to the standard that have been developed and agreed to over the past 18 months.

OAGi CEO Speaking at Remittance Advice Standards Workshop on June 28

The Federal Reserve Bank was trying to understand what standards are available and how they are used so they can try to increase the number of online transaction over paper use.

One big event that came out of the Workshop was a verbal agreement to re-start the Remittance Advice convergence project with IFX and the X-9 committee, which is the secretariat to ISO TC68, which leads the UNIFI (ISO20022) efforts.

B2B Cloud Panel video is now available

This is the video recording of our terrific B2B Cloud computing panel that took place on April 20 in Gaithersburg. This video is available for free to OAGi members and for US $29.95 for non-members. Members can go view or download the video here.

Non-members can see a little bit more and request a download link here.

OAGi Introduction Video now available for free

2011-07-18T06:08:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce the availability of the video of our recent Chemical Industry Council webinar entitled, "An Introduction to OAGi."

The webinar is done by Jim Wilson, our Chemical Industry Council Architect. Although this has a bit of a Chemical Industry slant, it could be useful to all who would like to learn more about us.

The video covers our beginnings 17 years ago and covers our scope and approach as well as our current activities and plans.

The video is available to all for free on our website here.

Thanks for your support.

Trade Compliance webinar video now available

2011-07-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce the availability of the video of our recent Global Trade Compliance Webinar.

This is a recording of a webinar that OAGi hosted that features a trade compliance expert from one of our members, CDC Software.

It provides a tremendous insight into current and future global trade compliance requirements. This webinar was hosted by our High Tech Council, but applies to all industries.

If you are a member of OAGi, you are entitled to access this content as a privilege of membership. You can watch it online below or download it in its entirety here. You must be logged in to access it.

Non-members can receive this video for US $19.95. Please write to us here if you would like to purchase the video.

Thanks to all for your support.

Milestone in OAGIS Release 10 development

2011-07-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to report that we had a major milestone in OAGIS release 10 (OAGIS X) development last week.

One of our long time contributors, working with our team of member architects, constructed and executed conversion scripts to convert our existing OAGIS Release 9.5 XSD source base to the new conventions chosen for OAGIS X.

This gives the Working Group a solid base to begin making the actual changes to the standard that have been developed and agreed to over the past 18 months.

While there is much more to do, we are very excited about this important accomplishment.

Thank you to all of those working on OAGIS X.

OAGi Webinar today at noon Eastern Time

2011-07-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

This is a reminder that you are invited to attend a webinar today at noon Eastern Time, hosted by the Open Applications Group (OAGi) entitled "Introduction to OAGi".

In this 30 minute webinar you will learn about the standards our community builds and maintains, our governance model, our Working Groups and also how to engage with the community.

You will also learn about the Chemical Industry Council initiatives and their work to migrate the Chem eStandards to the cross industry OAGIS Release 10 in the coming years.

This webinar is open to all, members and non-members alike and there is no cost.

You can register for this webinar for free here.

Thank you and we look forward to your attendance.

OAGi Newsletter for June 2011 just published

2011-06-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Our June 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can download it in it's entirety here.

1. Join us for a B2B Web Services Demonstration: OAGIS BODs using ebXML Messaging version 3.0 and AS4

The webinar will be held on Wednesday, June 29 at 11 AM EDT. For more information and to register, click here.

2. OAGi CEO Speaking at Remittance Advice Standards Workshop on June 28

David Connelly, our OAGi CEO, will be speaking at the Remittance Advice Standards Workshop hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and ASC X-9. Several other standards organizations that have a Remittance Advice will also be speaking, including IFX and GS1.

The Federal Reserve Bank is trying to understand what standards are available and how they are used so they can try to increase the number of online transaction over paper use.

3. B2B Cloud Panel video is now available

In case you missed the announcement, OAGi posted the video recording of our terrific B2B Cloud computing panel that took place on April 20 in Gaithersburg. This video is available for free to OAGi members and for US $29.95 for non-members.

Members can go view or download the video here.

Non-members can see a little bit more and request a download link here.

4. The OAGIS Release Ten (OAGIS X) Working Group meets every Friday from 9 AM until noon EDT. In addition, we have four other sub-groups that meet weekly. These include:

Context – Tuesday, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM EDT
Procure To Pay Content – Wednesday, 1:00 PM to 3 PM EDT
HR Content – Every other Thursday, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EDT
Chemical Industry Gap Analysis – Three Thursdays a month, 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM

All of these meeting are visible on our OAGi Calendar on the members part of the web site here.

All OAGi members are invited to join any of these groups. Please contact me here.

The week in review, the week ahead June 20, 2011

2011-06-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Last week was a very successful week for our members and Working Groups. We started the week with an announcement of our upcoming joint webinar with OASIS for an OAGIS BOD over AS4 interoperability demonstration coming on Wednesday, June 29.

On Tuesday, we had our ChemITC call with the Chemical Council and then our Context Working Group.

On Wednesday, we had our Procure to Pay Working Group making excellent progress and then Friday’s OAGIS X call was an excellent call where we spent a great deal of time discussing better ways to add extension mechanisms to OAGIS.

We covered at least 3 or 4 different new ways to extend. We still have work to do on this.

Then we have our tools discussion where we are working on three different sets of tools. The first is due July 1 and it is to be a script to help convert our existing libraries to the UN/CEFACT 3.0 formats.

The second is the new flattener, and the third is the context tool.

Our members are doing a great job and we have another big week coming up.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Join us for a B2B Web Services: OAGIS BODs using ebXML Messaging version 3.0 and AS4 Demonstration

2011-06-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

Please join us for this exciting joint OAGi and OASIS webinar highlighting OAGIS BODs using the AS4 profile from the ebXML Messaging Service Technical Committee.

This webinar will feature:

- A recap of ebMS 3.0, its main features and advantages over the earlier version 2.0.
- A brief overview of AS4 and the new Advanced Features specification.
- An interoperability demonstration showing the use of AS4 in support of the OAGIS Order to Invoice process for use in the mid-market.

This demonstration will involve multiple independent AS4 implementations.

Who should attend:

- Software architects, product managers and product marketeers in B2B and data exchange areas.
- End users and specialists with an interest in new trends in data exchange.
- Standards experts from other OASIS TCs and from other standards groups working on B2B data exchange or Web Services.

Date:
Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Time:
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Reserve your webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/665092680

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

OAGIS Release 9.5 Video now available

2011-06-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the availability of a video briefing of the new content in OAGIS Release 9.5. The video is similar to the presentation that Mike Rowell, our OAGi Chief Architect did during our April Plenary Session.

This video is available to all and can be viewed here without logging into our website.

Thanks to the members and staff who put this together.

Best regards,

David

David Connelly

CEO, Open Applications Group, Inc.

OAGi News for May 2011 just published

2011-05-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our May 2011 newsletter went out today and a few of the highlights of the newsletter are just below. You can download it in it's entirety here.

1. OAGIS Release 9.5 is now available

This release contains the Logistics content from the High Tech Council, the Procure to Pay work from the Metals Council, the Warranty Claim from the Partner Council, and enhancements to the Production Order to enable it to also serve as a Work Order.

In addition, we have revised all of the Scenarios and added many new ones to support the new functionality added.

We are very excited about this release of OAGIS and thank the OAGi Members and Staff for their hard work in getting it ready to ship.

You can download the release on our website: www.oagi.org.

2. Our Spring Plenary and Working Group Meetings were a big hit

Our Spring 2011 Plenary and Working Group meetings held on Wednesday and Thursday, April 20-21 on the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland were a big success.

This was our 10th Anniversary of hosting by the US National Institute of Standards and

Technology and we celebrated with a cake.

You can download the presentations from the meeting here.

3. OAGi Staff give a talk at a Canonical model Conference

David Connelly and Ralph Hertlein of OAGi staff attended and spoke at the Canonical Model conference sponsored by one of our members, IgniteXML (www.igniteXML.com).

The title of the talk was to introduce people to the thought of starting with OAGIS when building an organizational Canonical Model.

You can download the presentation here.

OAGIS Release 9.5 is now available

2011-05-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

It is my pleasure to announce that OAGIS Release 9.5 is now generally available.

This release contains the Logistics content from the High Tech Council, the Procure to Pay work from the Metals Council, the Warranty Claim from the Partner Council, and enhancements to the Production Order to enable it to also serve as a Work Order.

The New Nouns include:

1. Warranty Claim

2. Commercial Invoice

3. Shippers Letter of Instruction

4. Hazardous Material Shipment Document

5. Export Declaration

In addition, we have revised all of the Scenarios and added many new ones to support the new functionality added.

We are very excited about this release of OAGIS and thank the OAGi Members and Staff for their hard work in getting it ready to ship.

If you are not already a member of the Open Applications Group, we invite you to join our community and give back. You can read our value proposition here and see our reasonable dues structure here.

You can download the release under Downloads and Resource menu on our website: www.oagi.org

Thanks to all,

David Connelly,
CEO, Open Applications Group

New Version of Confirm BOD Document Released

2011-05-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

We published a new version of our normative Confirm BOD Specification this morning. It was the result of an additional contribution from one of our members, ADP, and the work of the Quality Working Group and OAGi Staff.

We believe this will be a further improvement on our last version which we published in 2007.

This document is free to OAGi members on our members website here (login required), and to all others for only US $19.95 on our Resources Webpage here.

If you are not already a member of OAGi, I invite you to read our Membership Value Statement and to join our community.

Thank you to all for this tremendous work.

OAGi Country Registrations now up to 89

2011-04-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

We have several new registrations from countries not yet represented on our website before. I am pleased to say we have added 13 new countries to our list, including:

Kenya, Morocco, Swaziland, Sri Lanka, Iceland, Moldova, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Wales, Kuwait, and Lebanon.

Our website totals are just below.

Continent	Number of Countries Represented
Africa	10
Middle East	8
Asia	16
Australia/Oceana	3
Europe	36
North America	6
South America	10
Total Countries Represented	89

Public Review of OAGIS 9.5 end Friday

2011-03-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

This is a reminder that the Public Review of OAGIS Release 9.5 ends at 6 PM PDT (US Time) on Friday, April 1, 2011.

You can download the Public Review for free here.

We also have a feedback for that we welcome you to fill out on our website here.

Thanks to all and we lookf forward to your feedback.

Chemical Industry Webinars are coming back in 2011

2011-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

The OAGi Chemical Industry Councils took a decision to bring back their informative Webinars like they held during 2010.

The Topics this year will include:

1. OAGi Orientation

2. OAGIS Orientation

3. Chem eStandards gap analysis with OAGIS

The schedule for these Webinars has not been established, but we will let you know the details once the Council works them out.

Stay tuned.

Busy Day at OAGi Thursday March 24, 2011

2011-03-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday, March 24 was a very busy day for OAGi and it's members.

We had five teleconference meetings, including:

1. UN/CEFACT Context Methodology
2. ISO 2022 Financial Payment Harmonization
3. OAGi Chemical Industry Council
4. OAGi High Tech Industry Council
5. Human Resources Sub-Group to OAGIS Release 10

The members are getting good work done.

Ongoing OAGi Collaboration with HR-XML

2011-03-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

HR-XML contributed a good deal to our OAGi Global Trade Compliance Working Group Meeting today. We look forward to our continued collaboration with them on that Working Group.

Apparently they have a compliance BOD for background checking that does similar functions in a different domain. We may be able to reuse some of their work for Trade Compliance.

Since they adopted the OAGIS Platform last year, their work is closer than ever to OAGi's work.

Now they are looking to contribute content to the OAGi Platform with the possible addition of a "Search" Noun to our OAGIS X Work. In addition, they are participating on our HR Content Sub-OAGIS X Working Group.

OAGi Members receive a 25% discount off Quick Start Training and Services

2011-03-15T06:15:00.000-07:00

This is a reminder to all that OAGi members receive a hefty 25% discount on all OAGi training and services.

This includes our very effective classroom training call "Quick Start", our phone support, and our professional services.

You can learn more here: http://www.oagi.org/dnn2/TrainingandServices.aspx

Reminder to register for our April 20 - 21 meeting in Gaithersburg

2011-03-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

This is a quick note to remind you that if you have not already done so, please resgister for our upcoming meeting to be held Wednesday and Thursday, April 20 and 21, at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

This will be our 10^th Anniversary with NIST and they will be supplying a cake to celebrate!

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you think may be interested, everyone is invited.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting just below or on our web site here.

OAGi News for March 2011 Published

2011-03-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

We published our newsletter for March today and it is available on our website here. www.oagi.org

Highlights of this month's newsletter include:

1; Release 9.5 Public review feedback is going well

2. OAGIS 9.5 Webinars are going well

3. Chcmical Industry Council gap analysis of Chem eStandards and OAGIS is progressing well

4, Our spring meeting is coming in five weeks in Gaitherburg, MD

Second OAGIS 9.5 Public Review Webinar is open for registration

2011-03-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that our second Webinar for the OAGIS 9.5 Public Review is open for registration.

You will be briefed on the background and content of the Release, and you will be given an opportunity to ask questions. This webinar is planned to last 35 minutes and it is free.

Title: OAGIS 9.5 Review and Public Comment
Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Time: Noon Eastern US Time

You can register for this free Webinar here.
Once you register, we will send you the conference call information.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!

April 20 - 21 Meeting in Gaithersburg just announced

2011-02-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce our April 20 - 21 meeting in Gaithersburg is open for regisitration.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting just below or on our web site here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

Special Keynote on Cloud Computing and B2B

Using OAGIS in the Cloud

OAGIS Case Studies

OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities

OAGIS Release 10 Working Group meeting on day two

MEETING AGENDA

The draft meeting agenda is online here.

If you have any questions, please write to us at meetings@oagi.org. We encourage you to make your reservations as soon as possible and we look forward to seeing you there!

REGISTER NOW - EVERYONE IS WELCOME

If you plan to attend, you must register for security requirements. You can register for the meeting on our web site here.

All OAGi members attend for free, but you do not have to be an OAGi member to attend. Individual members and non-members pay only a $275.00 fee to cover expenses.

OAGIS Release 9.5 Public Review Webinar Announced

2011-02-15T06:29:00.001-08:00

OAGi invites you to join us for a review of the new OAGIS Release 9.5. We are planning to do two webinars, with the same content two weeks apart. If you can't make this one we will have another two weeks from this one.

You will be briefed on the background of the Release, the content of the Release, and you will be given an opportunity to ask questions. This webinar is planned to last 35 minutes and it is free.

Title: OAGIS 9.5 Review and Public Comment
Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Time: Noon Eastern US Time

Register here

Once you register, we will send you the conference call information.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!

OAGIS Navigator for Chem eStandards now available

2011-02-14T13:53:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that the OAGIS Navigator for Chem eStandards Release 5.1 is now available for download.

We are very pleased to make this outstanding tool available to our members and standards users. The purpose of the tool is to provide the ability to view the Chem eStandards without buying specialized software tools, but it is also much more than just a viewer.

Some of the other features include:

Extract an Excel definition

Generate sample XML

Create a Schema subset

Copy the XPath to the clipboard

Send feedback to OAGi

The Navigator is free to OAGi members and can be downloaded directly from our Members portion of the OAGi website. If you are a member of the ACC ChemITC group, the Browser is just US $100.00. For non-members, it is available for the nominal price of US $200.00.If you would like to purchase the browser, please write to us.

You can view screenshots of the Navigator and learn more on our website here.

Thank you to the OAGi members who contributed to this software product. If you are not a member of OAGi, I encourage you to view our membership value proposition on our web site here.

OAGi Meeting Announcement

2011-02-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

We have set the dates for our upcoming face to face meetings in the USA this year. We are still working on the dates for our European meeting and plan to announce that date soon.

The dates and locations in the USA are:

Policy Board Meeting	April 19, 2011	NIST	Gaithersburg, Maryland
Plenary and Working Groups	April 20 - 21, 2011	NIST	Gaithersburg, Maryland

Policy Board Meeting	November 15, 2011	Oracle	Redwood Shores, CA, USA
Plenary and Working Groups	November 16 - 17, 2011	Oracle	Redwood Shores, CA, USA

Looking forward to seeing you there!

OAGi Development Methodology Page is on Website

2011-01-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

We have recently put up a webpage on the OAGi website that summarizes our OAGi Development Methodology and I am taking this occasion to re-introduce it to our many members and users.

The Open Applications Group has had a development Methodology since I was hired in 1996. This was one of the first things I built as the new CTO of OAGi.

As we have been using this for the development of our standards for many years, it has been refined and updated many times in the spirit of continuous improvement.

The purpose of the OAGi Development Methodology is to provide a documented step-by-step, repeatable, and open process for building OAGi open standards.

The OAGi standards development methodology includes four major phases each consisting of multiple activities and deliverables. This is an executive summary of those activities and deliverables.

Please refer to the full documentation on the OAGi website Full Document.

The methodology is based on a commitment to timely delivery, quality and incorporation of all the available best practices and is subject to change and adjustments as newer and more relevant methods and process become available.

The four major phases of the Methodology consist of:

· Definition – establish and approve a Working Group

· Construction – creation of the deliverables

· Review and Approval – internal approvals and incorporation of public input

· Publication – packaging, deliver general available release and announce

OAGIS 9.5 Release Candidate 1 is now available for Public Review

2011-01-18T05:20:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to announce that OAGIS 9.5 Release Candidate One is now available for Public Review!

This Public Review will be available through Friday, April 1, 2011. After that time we will take the Release Candidate off the web site, review all feedback, and make the changes deemed necessary by our member driven quality assurance team.

We expect the final updates and preparations will be completed on or around the end of April and we plan to release the final version of OAGIS Release 9.5 the first week of May, 2011.

This release contains the logistics work from the High Tech Council, the Order to Cash, Procure to Pay work from the Metals Council, the Warranty Claim from the Partner Council, and enhancements to the Production Order to enable it to also serve as a Work Order.

The New Nouns include:

1. Warranty Claim

2. Commercial Invoice

3. Shippers Letter of Instruction

4. Hazardous Material Shipment Document

5. Shippers Export Declaration

In addition, we have revised all of the Scenarios and added many new ones to support the new functionality added.

We would like to say a special thank you to the community for working so hard to help get this release of OAGIS ready to ship.

We are encouraging everyone to download and review this Release Candidate and to give us your feedback. You can learn more and download this Public Review on our website here.

One last thing, please support the work - Give back to the community. If you are not a member of OAGi, but you use OAGIS, please consider giving back by joining the Open Applications Group.

You can learn more about membership by writing to us at membership@oagi.org or visit our website and learn our value proposition.

Updating our Scenarios

2011-01-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

We had a terrific meeting yesterday concerning our implementation of Context Processing for OAGIS Release 10. We are updating the Scenarios with the intention of using them as one of our major context drivers in OAGIS Release 10. As a result we are adding a good bit more polish and rigor to them.

We are hoping to get them to a point that we can include them in the upcoming OAGIS Release 9.5 before we include them in OAGIS Release 10.

Cloud Computing as our Theme at last week's OAGi Meeting

2010-12-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

Last week's meeting had our best attendance since this recession began. Perhaps it was because we had keynotes from Microsoft and Oracle on their visions for Cloud Computing, as well as a presentation of OAGi's Cloud Computing initiative.

We also had a terrific case study that Cisco presented on their deployment of a web service that enables them to broaden the markets they serve as well as several other case studies and Council reports.

You can download the presentations for free on our website here.

OAGIS Enterprise Standards for Cloud Computing

2010-11-18T07:48:00.000-08:00

The OAGi community started a cloud computing initiative a last month. The community was concerned that cloud computing, like many new technologies, suffers from a lack of standards.

Where standards efforts are occurring, the focus is on technical standards, not data standards. A well known technical expert, David Linthicum, recently wrote an article about the danger of creating silos in the cloud as we have with other technologies, unless we address the standards issue as a technology community.

The good news for data standards is that in a recent survey, 11% of respondents said they were already using OAGIS in the cloud!

In order to ensure that the OAGIS data standard fully enables our community to leverage cloud computing, we have initiated technical research. Our early work has identified some changes to the OAGIS architecture that will improve the support for cloud computing and lay the groundwork for further evolution as cloud computing evolves.

Some of this work could appear in OAGIS as early as Release 9.5, which is scheduled for release in the spring of 2010.

We will be talking about this more at our upcoming Plenary session on December 1 in Redwood City, California, near San Francisco. For more details on that meeting you can go here. All are welcome to attend.

Terrific High Tech Council Meeting yesterday

2010-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

We had a terrific High Tech Council call yesterday. It was chaired by our Council Chair, Jean-Claude Monney of Microsoft.

The Council discussed their plans for a face to face meeting on December 2 near San Francisco. That is the day after the OAGi Plenary session at the same location.

More information on that meeting can be found here.

Chemical Council Third Webinar a Success

2010-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Chemical Industry Council held their third webinar in their planned series of three webinars yesterday, October 26. Jim Wilson, the OAGi Chemical Industry Chief Architect described what is new in the Chem eStandards Relase 5.1.1.

The highlights included a number of emerging agriculture-industry requirements for the following sectors:

- European horticulture
- Feed
- Animal Health
- Seed

Additionally, a new message was defined: Supply Forecast.

Jim also demonstrated a terrific new tool called the OAGi Chem eStandards Browser. The browser enables any user to easily view the content of the standard, browse the Data Dictionary, see where context is used and generate Excel versions of the Schemas among other things.

This new OAGi Chem eStandards Browser is free to members only on the Chem eSTandards 5.1 download page here and will soon be available to non-members for a small fee.

You can learn more about the benefits of joining our community here.

New Export Compliance Working Group

2010-10-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that OAGi has a new Working Group sponsored by our High Tech Council.

The scope of the Export Compliance Working Group includes Restricted Party Screening, License Determination, License Management and Checklist Screening integration. The Project Definition is available on our website here.

This Working Group is called the Export Compliance Working Group and is open to all OAGi members, regardless of your Council. We welcome the cross industry participation.

If you are not a member of OAGi and would like to participate, I welcome you to learn about the benefits of joining our community by clicking here.

OAGi Chem eStandards Browser now Available

2010-10-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that OAGi has released an easy to use tool for browsing the Chem eStandards 5.1.1. This browser enables the user to browse through the Chem eStandards without complicated technical tools. There is a screen shot of the browser just below.

The browser is free to OAGi members and can be found on the OAGi website here. You must be logged in and a member of OAGi.

For more information on becoming a member of OAGi, you can find information on our website here.

Thanks to all for your support.

Chem eStandards 5.1 Published

2010-10-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that a new version of the Chem eStandards is available for free download.

While we are working on OAGIS Release 10 to eventually supercede the Chem eStandards as a cross industry, Core Components 3.0 compliant standard, we pledged at the time of the CIDX merger to continue to maintain the Chem eStandards while the OAGIS 10 work progresses.

This updated version is called Chem eStandards Release 5.1.1 and addresses a number of emerging agriculture-industry requirements for the following sectors:

- European horticulture
- Feed
- Animal Health
- Seed

Additionally, a new message was defined: Supply Forecast.

The OAGi Chemical Industry Council is planning a webinar to review changes and demonstrate a tool that helps implementers to browse the standard in a business-friendly way. Stay tuned for the announcement of the webinar date and times.

Chem eStandards 5.1.1 is backwards-compatible with version 5.0 and available for free download on the OAGi website here. You must be logged in to download the standards.

October 2010 Newsletter Published

2010-10-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

We just published our newsletter for October of 2010. Highlights include:

- We had 17,795 different visitors from 89 countries last month
- Our next face to face meeting is December 1 - 2 in Redwood City, California
- We just published Chem eStandards Release 5.1

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/27eoh98

Saudi Arabia Registration

2010-09-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

I was pleased this morning to see that we added another country to be represented as a website registration. Saudi Arabia marks country number 6 from the Middle East and brings our overall total to 76 countries.

The breakdown by continent is just below.

Continent	Number of Countries Represented
Africa	7
Middle East	6
Asia	15
Australia/Oceana	3
Europe	29
North America	6
South America	10
Total Countries Represented	76

Uganda registration ups our country representation count to 75

2010-09-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

We have a new country represented as a website registration. We welcome Uganda as country number 75 represented on our website!

Uganda is also country number 7 from Africa. It is always exciting to see the breadth of our community.

The breakdown by Continent is just below.

Continent	Number of Countries Represented
Africa	7
Middle East	5
Asia	15
Australia/Oceana	3
Europe	29
North America	6
South America	10
Total Countries Represented	75

Presented our UN/CEFACT Strategy to the MoU MG

2010-09-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

We presented our Presented our UN/CEFACT engagement strategy to the MoU MG meeting yesterday.

The Memorandum of Understanding Management Group is an agreement of the worlds top International and Open Standards Groups. You can visit their home page here.

The objective of the MoU is to encourage interoperability by:

- Recognizing the risk of divergent or conflicting approaches to standardization
- Avoiding duplication of efforts and, therefore, confusion amongst users
- Ensuring intersectoral coherence

The Members of this organization include UN/EFACT, ISO, IEC, ITU, OAGi, OASIS, GS1, Swift, and others. We presented that will adopt the following UN/CEFACT Technical Specifications:

- Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) Version 3.0
- Data Type Catalog Version 3.0
- Naming and Design Rules (NDR) Version 3.0

OAGI will also use the CCL to the extent that it meets the requirements of OAGIS Release 10.

OAGi December 1 Face to Face Meeting registration now open

2010-09-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that registration is now open for our upcoming meeting to be held Wednesday and Thursday, December 1 - 2, 2010, at Oracle's Conference Center in Redwood City, California.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

· Using OAGIS in the Cloud

· OAGIS Case Studies

· OAGi Updates and briefings on Council activities

· Updates on UN/CEFACT AND OAGIS Release 10

· OAGIS Release 10 Working Group meeting on day two

You can download the most current agenda here.

REGISTER NOW - EVERYONE IS WELCOME

You can register for the meeting on our web site here.

OAGi Amsterdam meeting coming up November 1, 2010

2010-09-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

Our European outreach meeting is coming up on November 1, 2010 and registration is now open.

We will be hosted by Cisco, an OAGi Board Member, on November 1, 2010 at their facilities in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Please feel tell anyone you think may be interested, everyone is invited.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting here.

UN/CEFACT Meetings this week in Geneva

2010-08-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

The UN/CEFACT Forum is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland this week. OAGi has several members participating this week, including two persons from Oracle and one person from SAP.

Jim Wilson, our Chemical Industry Council Architect, and I are participating in some of the meetings remotely.

Today it is the Context Methodology work, which is important to our OAGIS Release 10 strategy.

Converting to UN/CEFACT CCTS 3.0

2010-08-30T05:19:00.000-07:00

We had a good meeting looking at automated ways to convert our OAGIS component libraries from CCTS 2.01 to the new UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) 3.0 format.

We are optimistic that we can do much of the work with home built tools using XSLT. I will keep you informed as we make more progress.

For our upcoming OAGIS Release 10, we plan to support CCTS 3.0, Naming and Design Rules 3.0, and the Data Type library 3.0. We also plan to leverage the Core Component Library (CCL) to the extent that it works for our requirements.

DHL Joins our High Tech Council

2010-08-27T05:06:00.000-07:00

We are very pleased to have DHL join our High Tech Council. DHL has been active in open standards efforts for years, including holding leadership positions in RosettaNet.

The High Tech Council is preparing to roll out some excellent work to support logistics for the high tech industry, so the timing with DHL is excellent.

The members of the OAGi High Tech Council include: Cisco, DHL, GXS, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Their web page is here.

OAGi Website Registrations Growing

2010-08-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

I checked our registered users yesterday afternoon and found that OAGi has added 2182 registered users from 74 countries to our website since December 2009 and we are growing at the rate of 6 to 10 new users a day.

It's fun to watch this community continue to grow and it is another reason why membership in OAGi is such a valuable thing. It really brings you into a large community of people who are working to solve the same problems.

High Tech Council Meeting Today

2010-08-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

The OAGi High Tech Council is meeting today. I am very excited because this is the first meeting Chaired by our new Chair from Microsoft, Jean-Claude Monney.

Jean-Claude is the US Chief Industry Technology Strategist for the Microsoft High Tech and Automotive businesses. He also has experience Chairing the RosettaNet Architecture and Electronic Component Boards.

European meeting registration now open

2010-08-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that registration for our upcoming European OAGi meeting is now open.

We will be hosted by Cisco, an OAGi Board Member, on November 1, 2010 at their facilities in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Please feel tell anyone you think may be interested, everyone is invited.

You can learn more about the location of the meeting, hotel, get directions, and register for the meeting here.

Successfully collaborating with ISA 95 Team

2010-08-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our OAGIS X Working Group had a terrific joint meeting with the ISA 95 team this week. We worked very closely with the ISA 95 team a few years ago when OAGi joined the Open O&M efforts.

The purpose was to discuss their new release of ISA 95 Part One with the intention of harmonizing the manufacturing concepts they have defined with the manufacturing concepts that OAGIS has defined.

The good news is their approach has been to make the base concepts more general, and then rely on a form of contextualization to add the detail to the concept.

That is exactly what we are working to do with our remodeling of OAGIS and building towards implementing the UN/CEFACT Context Methodology.

The two teams worked well together, and we pledged close cooperation moving forward.

OAGIS and ISA S95

2010-08-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

As part of our OAGIS Release 10 (OAGIS X) work, the Working Group has been reviewing the terms for manufacturing concepts with the goal of harmonizing OAGIS and ISA S95.

One Working Group member has build a spreadsheet that we have reviewed, and now we plan to meet with some of the members of ISA S95 to discuss this further.

This is an important development in the harmonization of standards for manufacturing and we hope it will produce a better Open Standard for the community.

OAGIS on Schema Central

2010-08-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Schema Central website has posted a nice expression of OAGIS Release 9.4.1 online on their website here. The documentation is pretty nice as well.

A word Release 9.4.1, we plan to be releasing OAGIS Release 9.5 within the next six months. Release 9.5 will include a new Warranty set of BODs, support for High Tech Logistics business processes, as well as support for the Order to Cash and Procure to Pay business processes for the Metals Industry.

New Export Compliance Working Group

2010-08-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

CDC Software, one of our Policy Board members, has proposed building a new Export Compliance BOD.

The proposed scope is to address Restricted Party Screening, License Determination and Checklist Compliance Screening Integration.

Stay tuned for the call for participation.

Software tools for OAGIS X

2010-08-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

The OAGIS X team most recently started a study group to look at software tools they need to build for themselves to help build and deploy OAGIS X.

This includes library management, conversion of components to CCTS/NDR 3.0, and support for the UN/CEFACT Context Methodology.

We are planning to use open source and build scripts for ourselves.

OAGi News August 2010

2010-08-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

The OAGi newsletter for August 2010 was published today. The highlights include:

A new members only section of the OAGi website
Our OAGi Group on LinkedIn Group
New Export Compliance Working Group
OAGi Tools Strategy dicsussion for OAGIS Release 10.

You can read the entire August newsletter here.

Mozambique Registration

2010-08-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to see that OAGi added a seventy fourth county to the registration list this week. Mozambique joins Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, and Egypt as our sixth African country represented.

It is always interesting to see the world wide representation of our community, and we welcome our newest nation.

OAGi Announces a new Members Only Website

2010-08-06T06:56:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that we have launched a new members only section of the OAGi website. We will be adding to it over time and we welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Some of the features include:
· An OAGi Calendar of events
· Free Software and guides that we charge for non-members
· Links to webinar recordings
· OAGi video training class
· Access to OAGi member logos
· Technical resources not available on the open website

OAGi members can just login with your userid and you will see the members area appear on the menu.

The OAGi website can be accessed at: http://www.oagi.org/

Visit our OAGi Linkedin Group

2010-08-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Open Applications Group has a Linkedin Group that is growing. There you can share with others of your same interests, including standards, interoperabilty, and B2B.

We invite you to visit us here. http://tinyurl.com/32ghe9d

Software tools for standards development

2010-08-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

We had a good OAGIS X development meeting last Friday, discussing requirements for software tools to do a better job of building and maintaining our standards.

We don't want to spend money, and we have some really smart people involved, so I am thinking we build some tools for us, not commercial use.

We already have a BOD flattener that was a team effort with staff and members, and we are planning to use that model for this effort.

OAGIS Release X Progress Report

2010-07-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

In August of 2009, we kicked off the official OAGIS X Working Group. During the first year of this three year effort, we have made significant progress toward our eventual goal of completing the effort in approximately 3 years.

We are meeting remotely every Friday for three hours, and in addition the Manufacturing Sub-group has meeting meeting weekly for two hours.

The Manufacturing Sub-group will be winding down in the next few weeks, and we are planning the Financial Sub-Group to ramp up soon.

We have learned a great deal during this first year, and we look forward to putting that knowledge to work in the coming year.

If you are not a member of OAGi, and would like to join the OAGIS X Working Group, you can contact us at membership@oagi.org.

OAGi Registered as an UN Economic and Social Council Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)

2010-07-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

OAGi has completed the registration process to become a registered NGO with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

OAGi has been contributing to the work of UN/CEFACT since 1999. As UN/CEFACT is an intergovernmental body of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which reports to ECOSOC, our acquisition of official status with ECOSOC should improve our members’ standing in its further work with UN/CEFACT.

Second Chemical Industry Council webinar is another success

2010-07-07T10:05:00.001-07:00

The Chemical Industry Council held their second webinar is their three part series. The name of this webinar was "Implementing Standards in and Beyond the Chemical Industry: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".

Our Council Chair, Tom Fannon, and long time CIDX contributor Nancy Fazzoni discussed their experiences on this topic.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the third webinar in the series.

European Chemical Industry Standards Opportunity

2010-07-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

We have recently been approached by the European Council of the Chemical Industry (Cefic at http://www.cefic.org/) located in Brussels, Belgium.

A new EU legislation named REACH, is being implemented for manufacturers, importers and supply chain actors. One of the key objectives of REACH is the safe use of substances throughout the supply chain.

As a result of this legislation, an joint initiative including Industry Associations (Cefic, FECC, and DUCC), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA, which is equivalent to the USA Environmental Protection Agency, and several IT solution providers, has been started to develop a standard (XML) for exchange of the necessary related data throughout the Supply Chain.

They are asking OAGi if we would consider adopting the standard, including it in our portfolio, and take over governance of it.

We will be meeting with them over the next several months to discuss this further.

Stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, we are open to comments and feedback.