1. Cataloging for Electronic Commerce: Tool and Resource Development for Creating Standardized Catalogs for U.S. Defense Logistics Information Service Barry Frye, Senior Technical Staff Member Supply Chain Support October 12, 2005

2. Agenda Project Contributors Cataloging Challenges Technical Data Integration and Catalog Enhancement I (TDICE I) TDICE II –Implementation Guide (IG) –Application Enhancements Conclusion

3. Project Contributors Funded by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) for the U.S. Defense Logistics Information Service (DLIS) TDICE I and II applications developed by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) Supported by the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) and Lehigh University

4. Cataloging Challenges Buyers contend with a wide variety of catalogs: –format, language, measurement standards, and level of detail Catalogs are either exclusively computer- readable or human-readable Sellers develop and maintain several catalogs to address various market segments and distribution channels

5. TDICE I Developed standard Extensible Markup Language (XML) formats for Catalogs Interfaced with ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary (eOTD): –Uses Standard Item Names and Attribute Names Developed open-source tools to encourage customization and comment

6. TDICE I Tools Catalog Builder – Interactively add/change Item descriptions Catalog Translator/Viewer – View Catalog in chosen language and at level of detail Query Builder – Develop queries to locate items in several Catalogs Query Processor – Process queries and view results

7. TDICE II Uses (XML-based) Implementation Guides (IG) that specify Buyer requirements of Catalog content Enables development of large catalogs Enables use of legacy Item data sources −(Microsoft® Access and Excel, text files) Enables use of an external Item Repository of Catalog validation

8. TDICE II Overview

9. Implementation Guide Represents buyer-specific requirements –Customized Catalog templates based on buyer needs Utilizes standard XML-based representation –Enables computer-processing Certified by ECCMA

10. Sample Implementation Guide

11. Catalog Builder Overview Enables interactive item description using Implementation Guide specifications Validates the Catalog as it is being built Enables mapping legacy data to item descriptions in the Catalog Interfaces with: –eOTD using Web services –an external Item Repository for Catalog certification

12. Catalog Builder – Item Creation

13. Catalog Builder – Data Mapping

14. Catalog XML

15. Query Builder

16. Query Processor

17. Catalog Translator

18. Summary

19. Conclusion Developed: –Standard Catalog and Implementation Guide XML formats –Processes for certification and maintenance of Catalogs and Implementation Guides –Interfaces for the use of standard identifiers from the eOTD –Tools for building large standard Catalogs from legacy data –Tools for viewing and querying standard Catalogs. TDICE II Catalog Tools will be available in February 2006 via the ECCMA Web site www.eccma.org