I am going to go on a bit about history here, but bear with me. I will come back to EDI at the end.

For the average Joe, the freedom Wallace (and Mel Gibson) was fighting for was to be lorded over by a Scotsman (Bruce) rather than an Englishman (Edward). In both cases Joe remained a peasant/serf with no right to land ownership, an obligation to pay taxes (without representation) and with little hope of a evenly applied “rule of law”. Is the race of the King significant?

The attempts by various English Kings of this period (1200-1350 ?) to acquire Scotland was a MAJOR historical cock up that delayed the creation of a unified nation (Britain) by hundreds of years. For all the historical inaccuracies of the Braveheart film, one point it did correctly portray was that the Scottish ruling elite owned significant landholdings in England.

Inter-marriage and cross-cultural exchanges was bringing both countries together. If things had been left alone and there hadn’t been the many wars, unification might have happened anyway by joint inheritance. This eventually happened in 1603 when Elizabeth I of England was succeeded by James VI of Scotland (her fathers, sisters, great-grandson - or first cousin, twice removed - I think!)

Even then, things were not settled. The last big rebellion happened in 1745 when “Bonnie Prince Charlie” was defeated at the battle of Colloden. This event holds an emotional place in the culture of Scots and is seen by many as the “death of nationhood”. However in this battle there were more Scots fighting on the “English” side than English. The alternative view is that this event marks the end of “tribalism” on this island and the rise of the modern Nation State.

Back to EDI.

From this perspective the freedom to choose a format looks like a freedom to choose to be enslaved by a ruling elite.

The freedom to depart from the standard is the freedom to not to be bothered with the law - that is for little people (or suppliers).

The freedom to reject the established standards and formats completely and develop your own is like sailing off to the New World in hope of a better life. You know it is not going to be a bed of roses but you think it is the future.

So how do we avoid repeating the mistakes of history? I think it is important understand what is important and makes a difference to our lives.

A N other encoding format is no better than one we already support. The new one might be easier to utilise but is requires effort to get to there from here. Using what we have is easier.

A single dominating format that was accepted by all, would produce future savings and improvements. This would be disruptive to the status quo. So to succeed it would need additional benefits beyond simple convergence, or we are in for a long wait.

Jeff, you must remember, however, that each industry has different needs and uses for some of the processing - i.e. hospitals & medical industry is different from retail which is different from auto mfgs. which is different from universities which is different from funding/loans and banking and …

In reference to your question - if I find the correct segment, element and information qualifier to send the proper information across on the EDI document, I will both update My internal guidelines and alert all of My TPs to the changes and let them know - in advance - of the proposed changes, so that they can modify their own internal docs.

And John, we all pay by the KC… Some of those MSG segments - such as sending the conditions of the PO (terms, whatever) are often times a requirement of the legal department that doesn’t care what the cost is - as long as it eliminates the potential costs later from lawsuits!

One final thought - just because “The whole point of EDI is to reduce or eliminate exceptional processing, ideally building a single seamless system connecting manufacturers, service providers (transport, finance, etc), distributors and retailers. The efficiencies in cost and time will benefit all, including the end consumer” - this doesn’t mean that there cannot be some variations (as needed) for industry standards and TP specific needs within a single document. There are some apsects of the 850 PO that maybe the medical crowd needs, but maybe isn’t so important to the retailers - or vice-versa. It we wanted one “seamless system” to connect, then we’d all have to use the same format - the same document - so that if I’m buying from Baxter Medical Supply (as a retailer) and General Hospital is buying from Baxter Medical Supply (as a health care provider), our POs would be identical to make Baxter’s processing simpler. But then the onus of the complexity falls onto General Hospital and ABC Retailer to make it easy for Baxter. Basically, somebody has to lose somewhere….

Well, you hit one of my pet peeves, so please bear with me while I rant a bit (no offense intended).

The “freedom” your article describes suggests acceptance of the use of generic segments such as MSG to carry meaningful or even “required” information, which has been deprecated by DISA for what I consider to be good reason. When each T.Partner has their own way of doing things, then custom map code (or a customized map) is needed which increases cost and risk. Yes we need to do some of this, but not needlessly.

The whole point of EDI is to reduce or eliminate exceptional processing, ideally building a single seamless system connecting manufacturers, service providers (transport, finance, etc), distributors and retailers. The efficiencies in cost and time will benefit all, including the end consumer. Yeah, I’m dreaming, right?

Wrong! If you need those codes in your transactions, I submit that in the past 20 (30 yet?) years there has been included in the ANSI X12 standards the appropriate segment and qualifiers for them, and VICS or UCI or some other retail-oriented industry group has recommended such in their guidelines. How hard have you looked to find the suggested mapping? When you find it, will recommend same to your TPs? Will you update your internal preferred mapping guidelines?

I take my freedom with my friends and family, but do my best at work to develop excellent technical tools to make business happen, with a minimum of cost and minimum risk of error. This often means following strict guidelines and best practices, which restrict “freedom”.

That’s just my view on the subject.