Background - Institutions and Environment

ETIM Deutschland e.V.

ETIM Deutschland e.V. is a registered association, established in December 1999 which has made it its objective to swiftly establish ETIM as a uniform standard for the desription of electrotechnical articles in Germany. To achieve this quickly, the 9 largest electrotechnical wholesalers and buying syndicates have joined forces. The goal of the association is to create a classification system for products distributed over the electro-wholesale, which is based on the technical features of those products being traded. The association will promote the nationwide introduction and the
usage of this classifcation system. In 2010 the foundation have more than 80 members from the complete supply chain. ETIM Deutschland e.V

eCl@ss

Based on the same motivation of a standardised communication for product-information, leading German companies developed an own classification: eCl@ss. eCl@ss is charactarized by a 4-level, hierarchical classification-code with over 27.952 subgroups and a keyword registry with 51.476 search options. It should display the source-market for purchasers and assist engineers with development, planning and maintenance. Unlike ETIM, eCl@ss depicts all of the products across all of the product-lines and describes the articles explicitly with up to 1.000 features. Since ETIM and eCl@ss have the same objective, a close cooperation was agreed upon in mid 2001 and to integrate the ETIM-model in eCl@ss. Meanwhile ETIM is member of eCl@ss and eCl@ss is member of ETIM. The consolidation of the models is supported by the German government. eCl@ss

BMEcat

The BMEcat-Standard was introduced in November 1999 in cooperation with the BME e.V. (German Federal Association for Materials-Management, Procurement and Logistics) as a new standard for electronic data-transfer of multimedia product-catalogs. The Fraunhofer IAO in cooperation with e-Pro Solutions GmbH were decisively involved with the definition of the standards and also coordinate its further development. BMEcat is a standardised data-format which is especially suited for the exchange of multimedial electronic article and catalogdata between suppliers and their customers. It is based on the internet-standard XML (Extensible Markup Language) as a universal plattform and manufacturer-independent exchange-format. Catalogs created in this generally-accepted format, prevent special individual solutions for different customers. The BMEcat-standard today, counts as one of the most strongly accepted formats for e-business. Numerous well-known companies e.g. AUDI, Bayer, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Bahn, Mannesmann, Philips, Siemens, VEBA , VISA and many others take part in the BMEcat initiative. The BMEcat for example also serves as the transfer-format for the ETIM product data. BMEcat

UNSPSC

classification system for products as well as for services, initiated by the UN. It is used by manufacturers, suppliers and customers likewise. UNSPSC is an open standard that can be used without restrictions. UNSPSC comprises 56 industrial sectors, from electrotechnical to medical and contains 12.000 fields that cover all possible articles. UNSPSC