GS1 EDI

GS1 EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) provides global standards for electronic business messaging that allow automation of business transactions commonly occurring across the entire supply chain.
It covers master data alignment, order and delivery and financial settlement management, as well as transport and warehouse management. The main business partners in scope for this are retailers, manufacturers, material suppliers and logistic service providers.

While, in the market, the need for digitisation of business data is increasing more and more, the technological evolution may require the players to extend and modify their EDI implementations with frequency, in response to new legal or business requirements.

In order to facilitate these implementations, reducing ambiguities in the content of transactional messages and in the use and definition of the business terms, GS1 has developed a new methodology, based on a semantic approach, aiming at facilitating the support of new syntaxes, technologies and requirements emerging from the market.

GS1 has currently four sets of complementary EDI standards:

• GS1 EDI Business Terms (Semantics / Dictionary)
• GS1 EANCOM®
• GS1 XML
• GS1 UN/CEFACT XML

They are being implemented in parallel by different users, although XML is better adapted to exchange information using the internet-based technologies.

Who is using GS1 EDI standards?

The GS1 Global Office runs the annual survey aimed at assessing the state of the EDI community worldwide. It measures the implementation of the EDI standards in countries where there are GS1 Member Organisations.

You can find a full report with detailed results below:

Implementation of GS1 EDI standards in 2020 – Full report with detailed results

Did you know that in 2020

• GS1 EANCOM standards were implemented by almost 126,000 companies
• GS1 XML standards were implemented by almost 47,000 companies
• The three most used messages are: Order; Invoice; & Despatch Advice (also known as Advanced Ship Notice)
• API, JSON and JSON-LD technologies are implemented or under investigation in more than ten countries around the world