Princeton, NJ/Brussels, Belgium—GS1 Global Office and the Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, report that rapid progress has been made in their two global XML pilots- the XML Trade Exchange Pilot and the XML Trading Partner Pilot. At their launch in October 2000, the UCC and GS1 Global Office announced that the primary goal of these pilots was to validate their XML strategy as the basis for the development of a future B2B electronic commerce standard. The two pilots have been endorsed by the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI), a voluntary organization comprising forty of the world's leading consumer goods manufacturers and retailers.

The XML Trade Exchange Pilot is now complete between Procter & Gamble (seller), Metro AG (buyer), GNX and Transora (trade exchanges) and UCCnet (provider of foundational services). This pilot tested the functionality of trading exchanges over the Internet and validated the global item synchronization provided by UCCnet and enabled through Transora and GNX. The major achievements are:

1. UCCnet provided foundational services to ensure global item synchronization for all participants.
2. Internet communications were established using the EDI INT AS2 draft protocol as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
3. EANUCC System-compliant item synchronization was maintained  between a buyer and seller. Procter & Gamble successfully sent new Item Adds to Transora, which then transmitted this data to UCCnet to GNX and then to Metro AG.
4. Both Procter & Gamble and GNX were able to successfully convert XML to and from EDI.
5. A Simple Purchase Order was communicated from Metro AG to GNX to Transora and finally to Procter & Gamble.
6. Both Metro AG and Procter & Gamble were able to integrate this data to and from their legacy systems.

The XML Trading Partner Pilot is being conducted between Royal Ahold (buyer) and Johnson and Johnson (seller). The focus of this pilot is the transmission of the Simple Purchase Order as an XML message over the Internet.  The Simple Purchase Order is the first XML message in a suite of GS1 electronic commerce standards being piloted. The pilot's major achievements to-date are:

1. Communication between the two pilot participants has been established using the EDI INT AS2 draft protocol.
2. Both participants have been able to send, receive, and integrate the Simple Purchase Order XML draft message.
3. Successful integration of the EDI and XML technologies was accomplished. A Purchase Order was created by the Ahold EDI system and transformed into an XML message. The XML message was sent over the Internet to Johnson and Johnson, transformed back into EDI and successfully processed on their Customer Order system.

The XML Trading Partner pilot will be completed by February 2001. The UCC and GS1 Global Office will announce the complete findings of this project at the conclusion of the pilot.

Ted Osinski, the UCC's Vice President of Electronic Commerce said, "In order to achieve the true potential of electronic commerce in the 21^st century, it must be affordable, easily accessible, and built upon a technology-neutral foundation of open, global standards. The two pilots are demonstrating the power and potential of XML to facilitate global electronic commerce. The UCC and GS1 will continue to work with the user community to develop a mature, open, and global XML standard. Our strategy is to build an XML bridge that links to legacy EDI systems and removes technology and financial barriers so that companies of all sizes can utilize electronic commerce."

Further information about the UCC and GS1 Global Office can be found on their respective websites: www.uc-council.org and www.ean-int.org.

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The joint mission of the Uniform Code Council, Inc. and GS1 Global Office is to improve supply chain management and other business processes that reduce costs and/or add value for both products and services. GS1 Global Office and UCC develop, establish and promote global, open standards for identification and communication for the benefit of the users involved and the ultimate consumer.

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