EDI Possibilities
Electronic Data Interchange
To ensure fast and efficient communication, Unimed has direct EDI connections with most customers, ports, terminals, and authorities throughout the region. This gives a constant flow of information about the many container movements. Through EDI connections, Unimed handles more than 10,000 transactions every day, each one of which makes work easy and secure for both business partners and Unimed.
The benefits of integrating EDI are significant:
- Elimination of re-keying and data duplication
- Reduction of errors
- Reduced data interchange cycle time
- Improved customer service and response time
- Reduced business transaction costs
- Improved productivity, possibility of staff re-assignments
- Improved access to real-time financial data
Furthermore, a direct connection between systems eliminates the risk of human errors, and as a significant electronic commerce technology, EDI is changing the way business is done and defining successful customer-vendor relationships.
The major part of our bookings is received via EDI and imported directly into the Unimed booking system. Likewise, the largest part of messages between Unimed and our key suppliers takes place via EDI.
Use of Standards
At Unimed, we have several years of experience with EDI using EDIFACT standards, CSV, and XML.
The use and implementation of EDI have grown rapidly in the last years, and Unimed is following the development of new technologies and EDIFACT standards closely. Please read the Unimed follows the international standards for EDI – exchange page for more details.
The use and implementation of EDI have grown rapidly in the last years, and Unimed is following the development of new technologies and EDIFACT standards closely. Please read the Unimed follows the international standards for EDI – exchange page for more details.
Unimed EDI Products
Unimed has centered its extensive customer EDI program on three products:
EDI Schedule:
- To provide our customers with a stable service, we are regularly updating our vessel schedules – e.g. by swapping vessels to fulfill our engagements according to our master schedule. To keep our customers automatically updated with the latest changes, Unimed's schedule is broadcasted via EDI.
- EDI Booking:
- At Unimed we are able to support the booking process with various message formats and functions – e.g. create new bookings, update/amend existing bookings or cancel part of or whole bookings.
- EDI-invoice:
- Using EDI in connection with financial transactions reduces errors and paperwork, and improves access to real-time financial data. At Unimed, we have been offering our customers EDI invoices for some years but we would like to take a step further and arrange payment via EDI too.