Dear
Mr. Wandt,
Thank
you for both your interest and your input. I am forwarding, by copy of this email
, your important observations to both Karl Best, OASIS Director of Technical
Operations and Ram Kumar, CIQ Technical Committee
Chair.
Again,
thank you for your input.
Scott McGrath
Member Services
Manager
OASIS
Organization for the Advancement
of
Structured Information
Standards
OASIS
PO Box 455
Billerica, MA 01821
+1 978 667 5115 (US & Int’l
Voice)
+1 978 667 5114 (US and Int’l Fax)
scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org
http://www.oasis-open.org
-----Original
Message-----
From: Holger
Wandt [mailto:h.wandt@HumanInference.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 4:18
AM
To:
'scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org'
Cc: Martijn Kriens; Paul
Drenth
Subject: AND makes
address XML definition available to OASIS
Dear Mr
McGrath,
having read the AND
press release (1 December 2000) on their XML definition for the worldwide
presentation of adresses, I thought it a good idea to inform you about other
developments in international standardization of addresses.
I am the chairman of
the working group address databases within CEN/TC331/WG3. CEN is the European
Standardization body. The task of my group is to develop a multi-part
standard, covering the definition of of address components and address
structures, the representation of addresses, the electronic exchange, the
validation and interpretation of address data. Currently, we have completed
the first part of the standard, which provides a dictionary of all possible
components of postal addresses, togeteher with examples of and constraints on
their use. The standard (which is in the enquiry phase of CEN at the moment)
also contains a model of the specification of an address, which the working
group wishes to represent in a formal language (possibly
XML).
Furthermore, the
United States Postal Service has made a proposal to the United Postal Union
(UPU - a UN organization) to assemble a development group with a vested
interest in the development of an international name and address standard. For
this effort they seek the cooperation of CEN (the working group address
databases), the UN/Edifact group, the Graphic Communications Association
(GCA), The Direct mail Advisory Board (UPU) and the PostCode group
(UPU).
During the last
plenary meeting of CEN/TC331/WG3 we agreed that we will join in this effort.
It will be my task to coordinate further cooperation.
Since you have
recently set up the Customer Information Quality (GIQ) Technical Committee to
work on cross industry XML standards, I think we should have a closer look at
our common efforts.
Harmonization is
very important for future implementation and having had a look at the XLM
schema provided by AND, I fear that their definition is somewhat engrafted on
the PAF (postal address file) data provided by Royal Mail. Mind you, I'm not
an XML expert, but I'm familiar with the specific terms used in
PAF.
We are only at the beginning of
defining address standards in XML and it is a long way to go. AND has
submitted its address structures to OASIS
recently for consideration. MasterSoft
has submitted its name and address structures as part of this process as well.
I totally agree with you regarding harmonization. We are keen to
work closely with any external working groups involved with name and address
standardisation. OASIS is the best environment to carry
out the cross industry XML standards work for various reasons and that is why
we are seriously involved with OASIS on this efforts. I look forward to
your thoughts on how we can work closely on this XML standards work. Given
that CEN and UPU have not yet developed any XML standards, my suggestion is
that CEN and UPU become members of the technical committee of CIQ of OASIS
that concentrates on XML standards for name and address and customer
information and by this way, CEN and UPU can bring forward its work
into the committee and
contribute to the XML standards effort.
Can you please e-mail me the site
where I can have a look at the work CEN and UPU have done on standardising
address structures?
My fear is that the
CIQ technical committee will develop a standard which will eventually not
match with the international address standard being developed by CEN and UPU.
Therefore I would like to get in touch with the chairman of the CIQ
technical committee. Would it be possible for you to arrange an introduction?
If it would be necessary, I would be willing to become an associate member of
OASIS.
Should you have any
further questions, feel free to contact me any time. I thank you very much for
taking my questions into consideration.
Looking forward to hearing from
you
Regards
Ram
Chair, Technical Committee,
OASIS-CIQ
Best
regards,
Holger
Wandt
Chairman working
group Address Databases CEN/TC331/WG3
Human Inference
Enterprise B.V.
Holger
Wandt
Velperweg
8
6824 BH
Arnhem
The
Netherlands
Tel. +31 (0)26 355
06 55
Fax +31 (0)26 355
06 66
E-mail: Holger.Wandt@HumanInference.com
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