eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF eBIZ-TCF: raising awareness on eBusiness standards in textile clothing and footwear industries CEN eSMEs kick off meeting, April 2 nd 2009 Piero De Sabbata (ENEA)

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF A cooperation project called for by the European Commission, DG Enterprise & Industry, to harmonise eBusiness and boost business processes in the TCF Industries Objective: to create a favourable environment for the European Textile Clothing and Footwear industries that stimulates and enables the uptake of ICT and eBusiness Technologies Promoted by EURATEX (coordinator), CEC and ENEA in collaboration with GS1, Pranke GmbH and Hermeslab Start January 2008 Duration 24 months Budget 1.4 Mln € Involvement aprox. 50 European organisations (initially)

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Analysis and initial requirements

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF The initial situation: Level of eBusiness Adoption  In average eAdoption is low, few transactions, many SMEs, few leaders  Existence of some/different standardised specifications for specific areas of business (managed by small communities)  The business benefits very limited because of small number of connections and functions  Lack of perceived benefit from existing systems make businesses reluctant to invest further  Highest levels of downstream systems in Western and Central Europe because of influence of large retailers  Highest levels of upstream systems in Southern Europe where production still relatively important

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Outcomes of the analysis activities Analysis REPORT is available on the web site (  Solutions for downstream should be more closely aligned to other consumer product sectors  Solutions for upstream need to be sector specific  ‘Legacy’ systems will remain but are not necessarily an obstacle to interoperation  Different technical specifications are also not necessarily an obstacle to interoperation  Increased the benefits gained is the biggest incentive to increasing adoption levels

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Architecture

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Objectives of the architecture  Definition of a general architecture for eBusiness in the two key areas of: –(a) production to retail relationship –(b) manufacturing networks  The highest possible compliance with existing European and International public standards for B2B in the FTC sector.  A business and technical reference for pilots implementation to achieve interoperability between existing systems and organisations

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Trade Textile/Clothing industry Footwear industry eBIZ: sectorial upstream specifications eBIZ: sectorial upstream specifications CEN/ISSS Texweave Moda-ML CEN/ISSS FINEC SHOENET Many specifications: CEN/ISSS Texweave, CecMadeShoes, GS1, OASIS UBL The harmonisation architecture eBIZ: common downstream specifications

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF  2 key areas of a public general architecture: – manufacturing networks: Sector specific languages to obtain maximum performance & flexibility and to quickly react to market trends. – production to retail: Common intersectorial specifications to obtain maximum simplicity with “scalable” level of complexity for supporting different class of products. Mandatory global product identification.  The architecture is “scalable” to address SMEs as well large organisations and  supports different paradigms/ business models Architecture

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Manufacturing networks (upstream)  Highly specialised networks  Close collaborations ( small numbers, strong partnership, clusters)  Keywords: flexibility and completeness  Sectorial XML specifications (real use is beyond formal standard –CWAs-) –Footwear CEN/ISSS EFNET / SHOENET (17 docs) –Textile/Clothing CEN/ISSS TEXWEAVE / MODA-ML (64 docs) Activities:  Identification (and update when necessary) of reference business processes and data models and of specifications and sources Objective :  Favourable environment to setup a collaboration

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Production to retail (downstream)  Anonimous communications ( large numbers)  Keywords: efficiency and normalisation  3 proposals of UBL templates submitted to OASIS UBL TC  Syntax independence: a common abstract data model+ 2 implementations with GS1 EANCOMM as well as XML UBL (through 15 UBL use profiles) Objective:  Fast and simple connection to hubs and retail eBIZ-TCF abstract data models UBL XML Schema eBIZ-TCF Profiles …real use… EANCOM XML WWS Profil EANCOM spec. 96a

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF And also… Cross-organisation communication: - ebXML MS specifications Web service, SMTP - ebXML ebBP to model and publish the collaborative processes, CPA to model agreements (ISO TS 15000) - Generic Code representation of code lists - etc etc Product and party identification (downstream): - GS1 GTIN, GLN Product classification (downstream): - GS1 GPC + regional classifications (DTB, FEDAS, EAS)

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Documenting the architecture  A ‘conventional’.pdf report  Official WEB site (  Online resources: –An hypertext with the architecture’s main elements (scenarios, processes, activities, documents, with a lot of links) –Use Profiles of UBL for TCF industries (pdf) –XML Schemas –XSL stylesheets and XML samples –Generic Code representation of code-lists –ebBPs, CPA sample…

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF The pilots

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF PILOTS Pilots established at national and cross border level. Based on manufacturers, IT providers, Consultancy,... They will:  Demonstrate the validity of the architecture  Demonstrate interoperability of different systems  Demonstrate the value of exchanging data  Provide experience to improve the architecture

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Bulgaria Czechia Croatia France Germany Italy Netherland Portugal Romania Spain (Initial) countries: PILOTS, the beginning...  Small clusters, facilitators supporting industries  Two phases process: - 1 st phase testing (4 pilots) - 2 nd phase adoption  More than 40 companies initially involved from 10 countries …

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Bulgaria Czekia Croatia France Germany Italy Netherland Portugal Romania Spain Initially…....PILOTS, today  On July 2008 a public Call for ‘Expression of Interest’  13 pilots (second group), from 20 countries,  More than 150 organisations directly involved, 23 IT suppliers  Further potential 200 as first follow-up …now also… Austria Belgium Denmark Estonia Finland Greece Slovenia Hungary Latvia Sweden Slovakia

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Other ongoing activities to foster adoption  Reports on pilots (to extract best practices)  eBusiness guides for European TCF industry (paper)  MOU (industry associations, stakeholders,..)  European public event (20-21 October, to be confirmed)  Participation to local/national events

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Some conclusions  Key issues: usability (of documentation), standards and super- partes promoters, scalable architecture, sectorial awareness, incremental adoption, perceived value  Good acceptance of the pragmatic approach  A SME based industrial sector presents a never ending set of different processes and models  Conventional standard based approach benefits SMES of a common guidance and (hopefully) of a critical mass of adopter but lacks of flexibility  The eBIZ-TCF approach to achieve interoperability is based on a mix of standardisation and continuous informal activities

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF Further Information: European Apparel and Textile Organisation, Brussels Mauro SCALIA Project Manager Ph

eSMEs -Meeting - Piero De Sabbata Bruxelles- 2 April 2009 eBIZ-TCF  ebBP XML representations –TC Upstream: ml/repository/ebbp/v2008-1/en/ –FW Upstream: footwear/repository/ebbp/v2008-1/en// –TCF Downstream area:  Sample CPAs –