Because this book is on supply chain collaboration, we can focus on the technology that has been recently developed to support trading partner collaboration. In 1997, the VICS CPFR Working Group established a technology team to develop the technology standards and guidelines for collaboration. The technology standards developed were first published in 1998 and continue to be updated and revised today; you can review the technology standards at http://www.cpfr.org. We have also seen collaboration technology guidelines established by other industries, such as the Hi Tech's RosettaNet as well as the Supply Chain Council's SCOR model.

The collaboration standards as established by the VICS CPFR Working Group subcommittee address the issues of:

• Data modeling

  • File layouts

• Text messaging

  • Definitions to information messaging including e-mail text

• Interoperability

  • B2B linkage guidelines so systems can communicate to each other

• Security

  • Data and text protection

The Uniform Code Council (UCC) has been extremely helpful in defining the standards for collaborative technology for the VICS CPFR technology.

Collaboration technology has become the central portal to the trading partner collaborative effort. It is here where forecasts are shared between trading partners and the actual collaboration takes place. Collaboration software can be configured for the tolerances and alerts to function and provide the action messages to be sent to the responsible person on a daily basis if needed. The software provides for "exception management" collaboration so the end users are not buried in too much detail.

In addition, "forecast warning" signals can be defined in collaboration...