OASIS Electronic Procurement Standards (EPS) Technical Committee

Meeting Minutes – 5/12/04

Terri Tracey, Chair

Minutes of Teleconference Meeting Held May 12, 2004

Agenda:

  • Review charter of EPS TC charter
  • Review progress to date
  • Discuss the best approach to moving forward, specifically, getting additional (working) members and discussing how to attack various areas of our charter:
  • Review of existing global eprocurement standards (Government, Industry, and other OASIS TCs)
  • Identify and liaise with organizations that have developed standards and see which ones "fit" into government and industry, and which ones might work together
  • Identify the key eprocurement processes and procedures necessary to procure items
  • Map standards to identify gaps
  • Make recommendations to OASIS on how to proceed.

Attendees:

Karen Cox

Paul Spencer

Ken Babich

Barbara

Jack Wagner

Kumar Silvaram

Sylvia Webb

Barbara

Jamie Clark, OASIS

Terri Tracey

We opened the call outlining recent activities. During March 2004, a subgroup of the EPS TC met several times to regroup. The notes of these meetings are attached to these minutes (page 3). The first part of this call was spent summarizing these Steering Committee notes.

There have been a lot of changes in the area of standards – in general, as well as in the eprocurement space. Jamie let us know about several fast-moving and effective efforts to map specifications to processes (e.g., ISO 14662; open EDI model). There is a lot of commoditization and interest in convergence in the standards area. We need to be sure the EPS TC is aware of these changes and that the charter is in alignment with the environment.

During the Steering Committee discussions (see page 3), the group decided to revise the order the EPS TC had originally set. The original order is outlined below:

  1. Review existing global eprocurement standards
  2. Identify and liaise with other standards-developing or –gathering organizations
  3. Identify key eprocurement processes and procedures
  4. Map standards to identify gaps
  5. Make recommendations to OASIS on how to proceed

The Steering Committee recommended first outlining the components of the eprocurement transaction. The new sequence would be:

  1. Identify key eprocurement processes and procedures
  2. Review existing global eprocurement standards
  3. Identify and liaise with other standards-developing or –gathering organizations
  4. Map standards to identify gaps
  5. Make recommendations to OASIS on how to proceed

Another issue that was brought up during the call was where to focus the majority of our efforts. The charter of our TC has mostly focused on outlining the key procurement processes that need to be handled via eprocurement. We discussed whether we should look at the entire eprocurement process cradle to grave, or whether we should put some artificial boundaries around what we’d identify as the process. I realize there are strong feelings in both directions on this subject, so I’d really like to hear your ideas.

ACTION ITEM:

At the end of our telecon, we decided we would post these notes on the OASIS site, and the TC’s participants would provide feedback. Please respond with your thoughts, using the tools on the site ( by Tuesday, June 15, 2004. Your comments are critical in determining how we’ll move forward.

Thanks much. Let me know if you have any questions.

Notes from Steering Committee Telecons

OASIS E-Procurement Standards (EPS) Technical Committee (TC)

Steering Committee Notes

March 2004

Participants:
Terri Tracey, chair

Mike Hoggard

Karen Cox

Ken Babich

Scott McGrath

Jamie Clark

For several reasons, activity on the EPS TC had been stalled for several months. In order to get things going again, the chair selected several enthusiastic TC members to join with the OASIS staff to discuss how to jump-start the committee’s activities (deemed our ad hoc “Steering Committee”). The chair had several calls with OASIS staff in February, and the Steering Committee met via several telecons during March. The goal of these calls was to review what the TC has done to date, determine whether the current charter, plan, and timeline still apply due to the rapid changes in the industry, and figure out how to best move forward with current and future resources.

Since the EPS TC came into existence in May 2003, a lot of new software has been developed. Many new standards have come to be, along with a lot of activity surrounding web services. Additionally, other OASIS TCs have made progress in developing many different kinds of XML-based e-business standards.

To date, the EPS TC’s main goals were to survey the landscape to see what electronic procurement standards were already out in the marketplace (or in a particular stage of being developed), and to contact those organizations to see if they were interested in sharing what they had with OASIS. We had planned to gather the business requirements of conducting eprocurement, and map the standards against the business requirements to determine any gaps that might need to be filled. We had then planned to recommend to OASIS which standards, if any (the gaps), needed to be filled so OASIS could get their more technical groups to work on writing those standards.

The main outcome of our discussions was to keep the charter the same. However, we decided to revise the order of what we’re doing. Rather than focus on the data / existing standards gathering first, we need to outline all the components of, then develop the business processes for, the entire eprocurement transaction. We will then conduct a more extensive environmental scan to identify existing and developing standards that match up with those identified business processes. We will then begin identifying gaps. In order to best discover any gaps, we should consider identifying experts in the various procurement processes.

Concurrent to outlining the business processes, we will actively develop liaisons with other appropriate OASIS TCs so we don’t have any duplication of effort. We can also likely have a “real product” more quickly by working with others; this product can then be used to attract others to our efforts and get buy-in from suppliers as well as others developing standards.

To outline eprocurement business processes and components, we need to look at the entire spectrum of the activity and outline in detail all the included processes. We will look at definitions, glossaries, processes, and code lists that already exist. Once we have outlined the entire process, we then need to decide if and where we draw the line. Questionable areas include, “Should forecasting be included?,” “How deeply should security issues be covered?,” “What does a typical eprocurement screen look like?,” and “What are the technical steps to conduct an eprocurement transaction?”

Immediate Action Items:

What / Who
Identify other OASIS TCs we might work with / Terri
Consolidate RosettaNet’s and ISM’s frameworks for eprocurement business processes and components:
  • Ken to send code list to Terri by 3/23/04
  • Mike to identify major components of eprocurement process and send to Terri by 3/23/04
/ Terri and Karen
Hold full TC telecon / Terri
Utilize web site more to post documents and communicate / Terri / all

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