Issues in open EDI

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is gaining more and more importance in business and administration, as big savings are in sight. It is made plausible that autonomy is the key issue in EDI environments. The globally and locally controlled autonomy domains must be separated from each other both conceptually and in implementations. Based on this observation, an examination is made of how the work within EDI environments should be organized. An autonomy preserving EDI systems reference architecture is proposed, the need for which was identified by the special working group of ISO (SWG-EDI). It consists of two-components. It is argued that future standardization work should include automatic scenario development tools, like a machine-executable scenario language, which would be supported by open EDI systems