Status of electronic data interchange in the forest products industry

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-3-2000

Abstract

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is computer-to-computer electronic transmission of business documents between business trading partners. The documents are in structured formats that can be processed by both party's computer application software. This paper discusses results of a study of EDI usage by forest products manufacturers (primary solid wood/pulp and paper) in the United States and Canada. Sixteen percent of respondents indicated that their company is currently conducting EDI. Of the respondents not currently conducting EDI, 28 percent indicated that their company planned to conduct EDI by the year 2002. EDI implementation was found to be highly correlated to company size; over 85 percent of companies with 1997 sales of $5 billion or greater were EDI capable while this figure is only 2.5 percent for respondents with sales of $10 million or less. Results indicate that the main reason for EDI implementation was because of a customer request. The need to commit corporate resources and the willingness to change business practices were listed as important considerations in implementation.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Forest Products Journal

First Page

32

Last Page

38

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