electronic data interchange for administration, commerce, and transport (EDIFACT)
EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Transport) is the internationally introduced EDI language. Today, the international EDIFACT standards are leading the way for the standardization of message content. These standards must be cross-industry so that they can be used in the service network of different business sectors.
Separate message types have been developed for each business transaction, such as INVOIC for invoices or ORDERS for purchase orders, and also message types for transport messages such as IFTMIN (Instruction Message) and IFTMAN (Arrival Notice Message). With EDIFACT, the Open Systems Interconnection( OSI) has created an international standard( ISO 9735) that meets cross-industry requirements.
Since not all industry-specific concerns could be implemented, individual industries developed EDIFACT subsets. These are generally EDIFACT-compliant, i.e. identical in terms of syntax and segment content. There is the CEFIC subset for the chemical industry, EANCOM for the consumer goods industry, EDIBDB for DIY stores, EDIFICE for the electrical industry, EDIFURN for the furniture industry and several other subsets.
The conversion of data between EDIFACT and in-house formats is done by so-called EDI converters. The international standard X.400 is available for sending the data.