Case Study: Advancing e-Business among Textile and Clothing SMEs in Greece and Hungary using UBL and ebXML

["Pim van der Eijk" <lists@sonnenglanz.net>]

A reference to a new case study of UBL has been posted at
the ebXML.xml.org portal:
 
http://ebxml.xml.org/resource/advancing-e-business-among-tex
tile-and-clothing-smes-in-greece-and-hungary-using-ubl-and-e
b
 
The documents exchanged in this case study are UBL XML
documents based on a profile developed in the eBIZ TCF
project.  The project uses ebXML messaging (ebMS), ebXML
business process (ebBP) and ebXML collaboration protocol
agreements (CPA), GS1 Global Location Numbers (GLN) and
Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN).
 
This project is all about helping small and medium-size
companies, in a sector that has been hit hard by the
economic and financial crisis, engage in electronic
business. This means that solutions have to be very low cost
and very easy to use. 
 
What follows is a copy of the management summary of the
paper.
 
Pim van der Eijk
 
//////////////////////
 
Advancing e-Business among Textile and Clothing SMEs in
Greece and Hungary using UBL and ebXML

In 2008, the European textile and clothing industry
(according to data provided by Euratex, the European Apparel
and Textile Confederation) was comprised of 160.000
companies that employed a total of 2.350 million employees.
The textile and clothing supply chain in Europe is
characterised by a large presence of small and medium size
enterprises, with an average number of 16.6 employees per
company in the EU of 27. Long term trends of globalization
and trade liberalization have challenged the competitiveness
of the textile industry in Europe. More recently, the
economic and financial crisis has significantly affected the
textile and clothing manufacturing activity in Europe. 

Innovative e-collaboration combined with other new
manufacturing and supply chain paradigms can provide some of
the answers to strengthen or re-gain global competitiveness.
Successful companies in the fast-moving fashion business
respond quickly and efficiently to changing market and
consumer requirements and reduce over-stock by fast
re-ordering and delivery. SMEs can achieve this by operating
in networks of virtual vertically integrated companies that
collaborate using B2B e-business technologies. A key enabler
to the adoption of these technologies is interoperability of
business processes, business information and IT systems
based on commonly agreed open standards. 

Achieving interoperability in the Textile/Clothing and
Footwear (TCF) industries in Europe has been the objective
of the eBIZ TCF project, a 2-year cooperation project
launched in 2008 by the European Commission. The project
aimed to boost and harmonize e-business processes and data
exchanges resulting, among others, in the elaboration of a
reference architecture to support interoperability and
e-business collaboration in the TCF industries. 

Within the context of the eBIZ TCF project, SMEs in the
textile and clothing industry in Greece and Hungary have
carried out a pilot implementation of the eBIZ TCF
architecture, under the acronym NNS. The core of this pilot
project was NOTA, a producer of women underwear / nightwear
in Greece, and the pilot involved some of NOTA's suppliers
and customers in Greece and Hungary.  The project was
coordinated by a University Research Group with broad
experience in the apparel industry and an IT facilitator
with strong experience in e-business standards and practical
deployments. The main objectives of the pilot were: (1) to
validate the eBIZ architecture; (2) to address the specific
requirements and characteristics of SMEs; and (3) to confirm
the business case for e-business in the textile and clothing
industry.

The NNS pilot adopted the eBIZ architecture and deployed a
solution based on the eBIZ profile of Universal Business
Language (UBL, an XML standard), ebXML Messaging (ebMS, a
robust messaging protocol for electronic business) and the
GLN and GTIN identification standards. The pilot involved
deploying low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf ebXML messaging
endpoints at the locations of the industry partners and
configuring them according to the business processes in the
eBIZ architecture, using ebXML standards. UBL import and
export functionality was developed for the ERP systems used
by the industry partners, and scripts were written to
integrate the communication product and the ERP systems. The
pilot confirmed the applicability of the eBIZ architecture,
and provided feedback to the eBIZ architects during the
project.

The NNS pilot is all about e-business among small and
medium-size companies. This means that any solution must be
low-cost and very easy to install, configure and use. It
should support outsourced (remote) management, and provide
very simple and robust interfaces. In NNS, a simple UBL file
drop and pick-up were used along with content-based routing,
providing a simple interface for SMEs that is even easier
than email.  The configuration is robust, can handle
intermittent connectivity and does not require a fixed IP
address or URL.

Finally, the NNS pilot confirmed the economic benefits of
electronic business. The pilot confirmed a strong reduction
in processing time for orders. Extrapolating from the
limited exchanges in the pilot, NOTA could save up to twenty
thousand Euros annually by processing customer orders
electronically.