I predict the usage of the ASN's (whether X12, UN/CEFACT, or XML) growing as the global supply chain increases; and the US and other countries prevail upon importers to control and report on the goods coming into their countries. In the March 23, 2005 email from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Robert C. Bonner; he discusses the C-TPAT and baseline security initiatives. Although the document does not address ASN and similar B2B messaging specifically, tightening controls by the incorporation of messages and status is implied. You can read the complete email at: http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ctpat/security_criteria/criteria_importers/commi_importer_criteria.xml

“The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is the largest and most successful government-private sector partnership to emerge from the ashes of 9/11. Launched in November 2001, with only seven major importers, today C-TPAT has grown to more than 8,800 enrolled companies, which include United States importers, customs brokers, terminal operators, carriers, and some foreign manufacturers—all major players in the global supply chain. “

“From the beginning, voluntary participation and jointly developed security criteria, best practices, and implementation procedures were the guiding principles for C-TPAT. As the program has grown, so has our need for more clearly-defined security criteria to establish the minimum, baseline security expectations for membership in this voluntary, incentives-based program.”

I predict increased usage for the ASN based upon these trends:

• Globalization of industry, suppliers and service providers.

• Increased emphasis on automation of supply chain operations especially as global inventories, and in-transit times are key factors in inventory and transportation costs.

• Emphasis on controls as entry ports into the country from foreign entities continue to be vunerable to terrorist threats.

• Risk mitigation and quick implementation of alternative supply sources in the case the supplier cannot deliver as promised due to hurricanes, floods, fires, epidemics, earthquakes. Or disruption of the supply chain due to political, labor, enegy or transportation disruptions.
  No sooner had I written these words on Risk Mitigation, this article came over AP services from Taipei, Taiwan
  “Quake knocks Asia back to pre-Internet days”, POSTED: 12:21 a.m. EST, December 28, 2006

  "TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- With one blow, Mother Nature triggered the largest telecommunications outage in years, cutting off or slowing telephone and Internet traffic in Asia from Beijing to Bangkok.

  A powerful earthquake off the southern tip of Taiwan late Tuesday damaged up to a dozen fiber-optic cables that cross the ocean floor south of Taiwan. They usually carry traffic between China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the U.S. and the island itself.

  The magnitude-6.7 tremor, which struck near the town of Hengchun, killed two residents of Taiwan and injured more than 40 people.

  It also showed the vulnerability of the global telecommunications network.

  Chunghwa Telecom Co., Taiwan's largest phone company, said the quake damaged several of the undersea fiber lines, and repairs could take two to three weeks."

• Global dominance of industry and consumer demands in the BRIC economies.
  In Ian Bremmer’s February 7, 2006 article for Fortune Magazine, “Taking a Brick out of BRIC”:
  "Ever since a team of Goldman Sachs economists coined the term 'BRIC' in 2003--for Brazil, Russia, India, and China--this group of emerging-market countries has assumed greater importance in the international investment community's imagination. The firm's economists argued that, given sound political decision-making and good luck, the BRIC economies together could become larger than those of the world's six most developed countries in less than 40 years. In other words, the research predicted nothing less than a profound shift in the global balance of power.

  You can read his full article at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/20/8369169/index.htm

The Advanced Shipment Notice is a terrific transaction when implemented properly. It is a critical component of JIT (Just int Time) programs, and is indispensable to global supply chain controls and operations. The “Advanced” is typically a misnomer as the transaction normally occurs at the shipment moment. Therefore, the receiver of the transaction receives notice in “advance” that the shipment is coming.

The ASN transaction is transmitted to the customer (or their agent) and used to update the receiving center’s database. The serial number identifying the shipment is bar coded on the label, so the receiving dock worker only needs to “wand” the serial number with a bar code reader to identify the shipment in their system; then designate the contents as received. Depending on the certification of the vendor, the customer may accept the contents of the shipment as detailed in the ASN; or may perform an additional inspection to verify the count, contents and/or quality of parts in the shipment.

The logistics operations can also utilize the ASN item/quantity details for scheduling deliveries, assigning locations in the warehouse, staging the inventory on the assembly line, create alerts if the shipment/cartons are not on time, and researching lost transactions by the tracking numbers and carrier details.

This is an enormous amount of data if manually entered or managed on paper documents.

ASN Contents

The ASN message can be constructed to contain carrier, tracking numbers, manifest numbers, packing lists, pallet, RFID (Radio Frequency ID number) and other details. I'm using the term ASN here meaning any electronic format. ANSI X12 has several messages for a shipment notification. The most prominent is X12 856 which contains a flexible hierarchy. This flexibility can also add complexity because usage vary dramatically between companies.

CompTIA/EIDX XREF Project

In 2004-5 I participated on the CompTIA/EIDX (The Computing Technology Industry Association at www.EIDX.Comptia.org) subcommittee on the Cross Reference (XREF) project and specifically doing analysis the ASN XREF. The goal of the committee was to create “metadata” or common business data and then map this information across various standards such as: ANSI X12, UN/CEFACT, RosettaNet, xCBL, OAGIS, and UDEF. I first analyzed nine ANSI X12 856 ASN transactions. There were a number of differences in hierarchical loops utilized (except for Shipment and Item), data content, and location of data in the document. The good news is the ASN 856 is very flexible, but the bad news is that is hardly standardized in its usage. RosettaNet does not contain the hierarchical flexibility of the ANSI X12 document. But it is a massive document in comparison to its X12 counterpart.

Coming next: Predicting the five major factors for the growth of ASN's.

Quoting from a Nov. 9th, 2006 ContactMusic.com article:

“Sir Paul McCartney has been labelled "idiotic" by property tycoon Donald Trump for not writing up a prenuptial agreement before marrying Heather Mills. Twice-divorced Trump, who married for the third time to model Melania Knauss in January (05), has criticised McCartney for allowing romance to cloud his judgement, insisting business should always come before love. He says, "I know I sound like a broken record, but get a prenup. I don't care how much you love your fiancee, it's just idiotic to get married without one.” ¹

They are experts of EDI, ANSI X12, UN/CEFACT, XML, ebXML, cXML, Oasis, OAGi, BODs, HL7, HIPAA, C++, Netweaver, Fusion, Gentran, GIS, TLE, PIPS, RNIF, DTDs, SCHEMA, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, RosettaNet, Business Processing, Project Management, UDEF, .Net, Java, J2EE, SQL, AS2, AS1, AS whatever, and so on, and so on, and so on…..

Listen to the Donald. It is time for a prenup. What contractually can you do to protect yourself in case of future “irreconcilable differences”? Now is the time to negotiate. If you exit, what is your outsourcing company responsible to give to you?

Some suggestions:

• Maps – The maps should be defined contractually as your intellectual property. Naturally, the mapping tool should be a major ecommerce product that you can purchase in case your prince transforms into a frog.

• Trading Partner Management – Contractually define your rights to the trading partner contact information, configuration data, volumes, etc.

• Translator Product -- Confirm they are licenced to use the product, and are current with their support agreement. Define the transition time/costs if the outsourcing fails; or if you determine to move the processing, maps and translation inhouse. Discuss the terms of the purchase the product if they are the vendor.

• Management Reporting-- Negotiate periodic updates of transactions/trading partners, volumes, % of errors and other metrics important to your business.