Statement from the CSG on the forward direction for UN/CEFACT'sE-Business standards

[Klaus-Dieter Naujok <knaujok@home.com>]

Statement from the CSG on the forward direction for UN/CEFACT's 
E-Business standards. 
 
 
Following the successful completion of the development stage of 
ebXML on time in Vienna on 11 May, and the conclusion of a 
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UN/CEFACT and OASIS, the 
CSG has been considering the forward direction and organisation of 
UN/CEFACT's standards development in e-business. 
 
Under the MoU responsibility for the maintenance and further 
development of ebXML specifications has been allocated between 
OASIS and UN/CEFACT. UN/CEFACT will be responsible for Business 
Processes and Core Components.

Taking this into account, and the e-business strategy approved at 
UN/CEFACT's March 2001 Plenary, the CSG believes that the most 
effective way forward is to bring together the expertise and 
resources of the UN/EDIFACT Working Group (EWG), the Business 
Processes Analysis Working Group, (BPAWG) and the Business Process 
and Core Component work arising out of the ebXML initiative, and to 
integrate them into a new Working Group which will be able to 
address the needs of all of its users. 
 
The development of this new Working Group - the E-Business Working 
Group - will require considerable planning and consultation and the 
CSG have mandated a special team to undertake this task which 
includes the Chairs of all the relevant groups. The CSG also 
believes that the September Rotterdam EWG meeting (10-14 September 
2001) provides the perfect platform for starting the moves to the 
new structure and, therefore, will be organising concurrent 
meetings of the various groups so as to finalise the details of the 
terms of reference, work programme, organisation, resource 
requirements and launch date of the new group.  
 
 
Geneva, 17 May 2001. 
 
Notes 
 
UN/CEFACT is the UN's Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic 
Business (www.uncefact.org) 
 
OASIS is the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured 
Information Standards (www.oasis-open.org)  
 
The CSG is the Steering Group of UN/CEFACT 
 
ebXML is the joint initiative between UN/CEFACT and OASIS to 
develop a framework for the exchange of e-business information 
using XML. Its rapid development stage was successfully completed 
on time in Vienna on 11 May 2001. (www.ebXML.org)  
 

-- 
Klaus-Dieter Naujok                     UN/CEFACT/TMWG Chair
IONA Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, Chief Scientific Officer