SUPPLY CHAIN :Rosettanet pushes for faster adoption

By Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation

Published on May 21, 2008

Consortium ties up with electronics industry body, local developers

RosettaNet Thailand is collaborating with the Electrical and Electronics Institute (EEI) to push local suppliers, especially in the electrical and electronics industry, to adopt a new electronic-business model to improve trading efficiency and take part in the world's supply-chain system.

The collaboration will develop electronics-business software based on the RosettaNet standard used in the industry's trading network.

RosettaNet is a common set of standards for e-business used in supply-chain transactions conducted over the Internet. Based on XML, it defines message guidelines, business-process interfaces and the implementation framework for interactions between companies.

Initiated by more than 40 hi-tech companies around the world, the standard is widely accepted not only in the global semiconductor industry, but also in sectors like electronic components, consumer electronics, telecommunications and logistics.

By adopting the RosettaNet standard for use in the trading network, each chain can improve its business efficiency while speeding up the response time in the chain, said country manager Chayakrit Charoensiriwath.

To make the Thai electrical and electronics industry become an integral part of the global supply-chain system, the organisation is working with the EEI to drive the adoption of the standard and help increase the competitiveness of the industry on the world stage.

The plan, Chayakrit said, is to push local electrical and electronics suppliers to use the RosettaNet standard to conduct business using the trading network.

However, with the realisation that not all suppliers are keen on the new technology, the organisation will work with local software companies to develop electronics-business software based on the standard and sell the software to local suppliers using the application service provider (ASP) model.

Instead of making the entire investment to buy the software system, the model will allow local suppliers to use the software as a service and pay on a pay-per-use basis.

Chayakrit said this would especially benefit small and medium-sized enterprises that are low on cash and cannot invest in information-technology human resources to maintain the system but do want to use the software to improve their business efficiency.

The organisation is presently training local software companies on the technical aspects of developing the software to support the RosettaNet-standard based trading network.

The software, using the ASP model, will be ready for use within 12-18 months.

The model will be extended to other industries as well.

To help industries move to the RosettaNet standard, the organisation is collaborating with Microsoft (Thailand) to develop an add-on application that will make Microsoft's Office 2007 suite RosettaNet-enabled.

Instead of using RosettaNet Editor to convert Microsoft-based files to the RosettaNet standard, the add-on utility will allow Microsoft users to enable automatic file conversion with a single click, Chayakrit said.

The add-on application, which will support the Thai language, is expected to come out by the end of the year.

Source : http://nationmultimedia.com/2008/05/21/technology/technology_30073542.php