Electronic data interchange represents less than 1% of its potenetial transaction volume in Britain, according to Jerrold Donington, a principal lecturer at EDI centre, Langton College. Recently set up as a centre of knowledge and research for the technology for exchanging orders, invoices and such computer-to-computer, the college is an offshoot of Langton Ltd, the information technology consultancy, specialising in the subject. The two will work closely together, at Craigmore house, in Henley, Oxfordwhire, providing consultancy and education. The Langton team believes that electronic data interchange is in a similar situation to that of the telephone system last century. When the bubble bursts enough people plug into the system to make it viable there will be an explosion of EDI users. The college runs a range of training courses from the strategic benefits of EDI for managing directors to its practical implementation for data processing managers and even some hands on training. Although the courses may eventually be targeted towards specific industries, Steve Coussins, managing director of the college, thinks it is valuable to have a mixed sector environment and says that the issues are similar anyway across different industries. Coussins says the main difficulty in EDI education is that most people think they already have it, if they have one terminal linked to one trading partner sending, for example, invoices. At Langton they believe in the interactive approach, allowing, for example, a customer to enquire into their supplier’s workinprogress file, essential in a manufacturing justintime environment. Open systems is also a priority at the college. One lecturer will be Dr Pamela Gray, managing director of Marosi Ltd, the startup marketing firm committed to open systems. Dr Gray believes open systems is an ideal environment for EDI and that it would encourage its adoption enormously. In the end, the takeup rate for EDI will largely depend on how the technology is sold to senior managers, but at Langton the belief is that those that stall on the issue for too long may well find themselves pushed out of business altogether by those quicker on the uptake.
