Chemical Industry Leaders Working Together to Establish Global XML Standards

16-Nov-2000

A major industry movement to establish eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) standards for conducting Internet-based business by chemical companies and their trading partners is bringing together many of the leaders in this industry. Moving quickly, the Chemical eStandards initiative, which began in July, has already entered its second phase of development. As of this release date, the companies listed below are actively contributing to the development, use and promotion of these standards within the industry. These include chemical companies — Air Products, BASF, BP, DuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Rohm and Haas, Shell, Solutia, and The Dow Chemical Company — and chemical marketplaces —CheMatch, ChemConnect, Elemica, Envera and ElastomerSolutions. Also participating in the development of these standards are service providers — Andersen Consulting, Bulknet, Citigroup, Transentric, webMethods, Inc. and XMLSolutions Corporation. Other companies also actively supporting and encouraging the use of these standards are Atofina, Bayer Corporation, Omnexus and ExxonMobil Chemical. Whether chemical companies are trading directly with one another or through a common marketplace, domestically or internationally, the Chemical eStandards are being designed to facilitate electronic buying, selling and delivery of products across the industry. As such, they are intended to be easily applicable to many different business models. "A common set of Chemical eStandards will decrease support costs and enhance efficiency and speed of delivery in electronic commerce for all players in the chemical industry worldwide," said Bob Ridout, chief information officer (CIO), DuPont. "Standardization of data interchange allows businesses to capitalize on the specific advantages of electronic trading of chemicals and to potentially realize higher gains." Being developed in an open process, the Chemical eStandards are vendor-neutral and are expected to be available free of charge to all industry participants who want to use them. "For us, the opportunity to join this effort at this early stage is particularly exciting," said Roger Mowen, CIO, Eastman. "The Chemical eStandards will give our industry a neutral foundation to explore highly valuable collaborative solutions." Once tested, the intent is for these standards to be available through Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX). The association’s members are voting soon to decide whether to formally take on the eStandards development process, but if the decision is not to proceed another nonprofit association venue will be used. "Supporting this collaborative drive to develop a single set of standards for global data exchange underscores our mission at CIDX to provide the chemical industry with cost-effective electronic commerce solutions," said Kathy MacRae, board chairperson, CIDX. "We are looking forward to offering our members and nonmembers the ability to conduct business with ease and speed at a minimum cost, irrespective of their size and resources." The timeline for completion of these standards is projected to be mid-January 2001. Companies interested in information on the Phase 1 standards may visit www.cidx.org.

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