<p>Detta examensarbete behandlar ämnet standardisering av affärsprocesser för elektronisk handel mellan företag (B2B). I ett par decennier har EDI varit den enda standarden för att elektroniskt överföra standardiserade dokument. EDI är en dyr och komplex teknologi, vilket har lett till att den används av främst större företag i samarbete med deras största leverantörer/kunder. Standarden XML kom år 1998, den lämpar sig även för mindre företag och är anpassad för Internet.</p><p>Arbetets syfte har varit att studera vilka standards som används och varför, i vilka affärsprocesser de används, påverkan på affärsprocesserna, samt hur företagen ser på framtiden inom området. Undersökningen baseras på en enkätundersökning med åtta större företag i olika branscher.</p><p>Resultatet visar att valet av standards oftast inte styrs av vilken teknologi företaget behöver utan de flesta företag ingår i ett nätverk av samarbetspartners som påverkar varandra. För att alla företag ska kunna ta del av de effektiviseringsvinster som en standardisering innebär krävs enklare och webb-baserade lösningar.</p>

<p>EDI as well as XML are the basic communication standards used in B2B e-commerce. With special interest to transaction processing systems. According to the specific attributes EDI and XML provides. There could be some common and merely different features derived. But also there could be the impact of considerations from the business organisation domain with additional issues which determine the use of EDI or XML.</p><p>In this study the particular interest is in the finding of a set of reasons, not only in the single sight of the performance of the two techniques. The study surveys the impact of business processes, the found business environment settings and the choose of standards with special reference to the scrutinised area.</p>

<p>This thesis describes the development of a SOA-based architecture for integrating large EDI-using manufacturing companies purchasing processes with smaller non-EDI capable manufacturing companies, using online services.</p><p>The underlying need for this project lies with the fact that these small manufacturing companies risk to miss out on business, due to their inability to communicate via the industry standard EDI format. At the same time, getting EDI-capable involves significant investments in software licenses, connectivity services and consulting or training that these small companies may not be ready to make. The mentor company of this thesis project, System Andersson, produces resource planning software for this type of companies and would like to be able to provide them with an easy to use way of “jacking in” EDI support into their businesses, without having to make such significant investments. Ideally this feature would be developed as a standalone subscription based service that could be provided to users in such a way that their existing System Andersson software could connect to it and no further hard- or software would be needed on site. This EDI-enabling should be as easy as to be entirely transparent for the end-user companies. The task handed to the author was thus to develop an architecture for how such a subscription based service could be developed. Furthermore, in order to promote re-use and simplify development, the architecture was to be based on SOA concepts.</p><p>As a result of the project, such an architecture has been developed. The architecture details two services for translating and storing for later delivery a number of EDI message types of the EDIFACT variety. The architecture also specifies communications protocols (SOAP over HTTPS and AS2 over HTTPS) and APIs (web services) for how to communicate with these services. These specifications can be used to implement a system that performs the necessary integration, so that the smaller companies may indeed communicate via EDI.</p><p>The fitness of the developed architecture has been tested by implementing a prototype version of such a system based on it. It has also been validated by way of comparing to how well it adheres to SOA design principles. All in all, this design appears to be quite sound and presents a working solution to the studied problem.</p>

<p>Our purpose with this report is to create a structural basis over how to improve handling with international freight at ITAB Shop Concept (further mentioned as ITAB). We have through interviews with employees at ITAB and observations identified problems that have caused difficulties at handling with international freight, from the time when an order is placed to when it’s delivered to the customer. We have also interviewed shipping companies.</p><p>We have in the theory chapter written about shipping conditions for international freight and a main part of our theory is about NSAB 2000, which describes the obligations and rights shippers and consignee has.</p><p>In order to improve the efficiency ITAB has to be aware of the problems in the company and try to solve them.</p><p>The problems we have identified are described in the result chapter. One of the problems is that employees at the warehouse don’t know when gods is supposed to be shipped. This may result into gods being left over in the warehouse. We have in the analyze chapter listed our solutions to solve this problem and it has first priority in our classification table which are discussed further below. The classification table consist of problems that we have identified and each problem has a priority. The priority is based from two criteria’s, how difficult it’s to solve and how important it’s to solve the problem. We have thereafter multiplied these two criteria’s to get a priority list. The problems with the lowest points are the ones we suggest ITAB should solve first.</p>

<p>En snabb och ständig teknisk utveckling leder till att företag och andra organisationer kan ta del av nya tekniska verktyg, som sedan kan användas i verksamheten. Till följd av detta möjliggörs nya sätt att kommunicera information och göra affärer på elektroniskt. Detta område kallas elektroniska affärer och får allt större utrymme idag, men vad är det egentligen som gör att ett företag intresserar sig för det?</p><p>Elektroniska affärer är ett stort och komplext område som ofta kan innebära stora förändringar för ett företag. Att eventuellt strukturera om och förändra arbetssättet kan vara något som ses som lite skrämmande för en del företag och därför kan det uppstå problem med att se de positiva effekterna. Ytterligare hinder kan vara att företaget inte har tillräcklig kunskap inom ämnet och att man tycker att verksamheten fungerar bra som den gör.</p><p>Utifrån ovanstående resonemang blir syftet med denna uppsats att undersöka vilka drivkrafter som finns bakom elektroniska affärer, alltså vad det är som gör att ett företag inför och använder sig av detta. Dessutom syftar uppsatsen till att undersöka vilka effekter elektroniska affärer kan ha på ett företags verksamhet och här finns ett visst fokus på elektroniska affärer genom så kallad Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Ytterligare en del av syftet är att undersöka vilka framgångsfaktorer som finns för att införande och användning av elektroniska affärer ska fungera på ett bra sätt.</p><p>För att uppnå målet med uppsatsen har en fallstudie bedrivits på Becker Acroma, ett svenskt företag som bland annat producerar lacker och färger. Fallstudien har genomförts med intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod.</p><p>Det insamlade materialet från fallstudien har analyserats utifrån den teoretiska referensram som återfinns i uppsatsen. Några av slutsatserna är att utomstående aktörer kan vara drivande för ett införande av elektroniska affärer. En ytterligare drivkraft är att företag som bedriver någon form av förändringsarbete, för att förbättra sin verksamhet, ser elektroniska affärer som en viktig del i detta arbete. Behovet av ett bättre informationsflöde företag emellan är också en stark drivkraft för införandet av elektroniska affärer.</p><p>Möjliga effekter av ett införande har bland annat visat sig vara möjligheter till minskat manuellt arbete, tillgång till mer och utförligare information och en bättre lagerhantering.</p><p>De framgångsfaktorer som har identifierats är bland annat en övergripande analys av dagens arbetssätt, flexibla tekniska lösningar, hantering av förändrade affärsrelationer och hantering av förändringar inom företaget.</p>

Preterm birth continues to be an important public health concern globally. Born only 3 to 6 weeks premature, findings increasingly demonstrate that the late preterm population (34-36 weeks gestational age) is not exempt from long-term risk, as the last few weeks of gestation are important for both physical and cognitive development. This study examined whether late preterm birth was associated with poorer health, development and educational outcomes in the early childhood period, after controlling for a range of medical and social factors. / February 2016

Our purpose with this report is to create a structural basis over how to improve handling with international freight at ITAB Shop Concept (further mentioned as ITAB). We have through interviews with employees at ITAB and observations identified problems that have caused difficulties at handling with international freight, from the time when an order is placed to when it’s delivered to the customer. We have also interviewed shipping companies. We have in the theory chapter written about shipping conditions for international freight and a main part of our theory is about NSAB 2000, which describes the obligations and rights shippers and consignee has. In order to improve the efficiency ITAB has to be aware of the problems in the company and try to solve them. The problems we have identified are described in the result chapter. One of the problems is that employees at the warehouse don’t know when gods is supposed to be shipped. This may result into gods being left over in the warehouse. We have in the analyze chapter listed our solutions to solve this problem and it has first priority in our classification table which are discussed further below. The classification table consist of problems that we have identified and each problem has a priority. The priority is based from two criteria’s, how difficult it’s to solve and how important it’s to solve the problem. We have thereafter multiplied these two criteria’s to get a priority list. The problems with the lowest points are the ones we suggest ITAB should solve first.

Electronic document handling was first used in the automotive industry in the early 1970’s, the way of communicating electronic at the time was concerned with the communication way of EDI (Hsieh, 2004). In the beginning of 2000 a new way of communicating electronic documents was introduced with the emergence of VAN-operators (Hsieh, 2004). This technology of communicating electronic invoices has shown to be less complex for the businesses than the previous EDI connections. The VAN-operators enable companies regardless of size, ERP, also known as Enterprise Resource Planning, system, formats or transaction volume to send and receive electronic invoices. The subject of electronic invoice handling have become increasingly debated, mainly because of the legislations taking place all over Europe, and as well as the environmental impact by business transactions being sent by paper. The objective of this thesis is to examine the challenges, solutions and outcomes for companies switching to electronic invoice handling. The data collected for the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part consist of information retrieved by previous literature as well as internet sources. The second part concerns the case studies conducted for the thesis in respect to our research questions. For this reason Scandinavian companies have been interviewed, with different precondition as in size, industry, transaction volume and IT structure. The findings from the first and second part have been analyzed and conclusion have been made, we suggest using a VAN-operators, which have shown to be the most appropriate alternative for companies that are implementing electronic invoice handling. The result of this thesis can be used as a guideline for companies when considering a switch from manual to electronic invoice handling.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) holds the potential to improve contemporary business operations, which are redefined frequently based on the demands of global competition. There are numerous EDI systems, which an enterprise can choose to adopt in order to meet its needs and goals. International literature demonstrates a variation of views regarding the adoption of new technologies, which differ according the size of each organization along with internal and external impediments and determinants. The use of EDI worldwide has gained a positive acceptance by commercial companies, industries and service providers, followed by rapid adoption mainly in the processes of large organizations. Conversely, the predictions of previous years’ studies have not been materialized to the expected extent. In Greece in particular, there is low penetration and a reluctance to adopt EDI technologies by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This study is based on the theoretical framework of Technology, Organization and Environment (TOE). A qualitative multiple case study research design has been used, in order to provide further insights on the factors that affect the decision of Greek SMEs in adopting EDI technologies. The significance of the perceived direct and indirect benefits, the effects of the perceived financial cost and technical competence and the importance of industry and government pressure on corporate level, are analyzed and discussed. An empirical support of the low penetration of EDI in the Greek SMEs' community is also provided. This research contributes in the existing knowledge about EDI adoption decisions regarding Greek SMEs by providing a variation of views, further insights on how Greek SMEs behave and react during the current economic recession and a new cost factor that emerged within the analysis of multiple cases. Avenues for future research are recommended in order to expand this study's findings in the field of corporate IT innovation.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was developed from the fifties of the last century. Mainly used was for accounting. Another milestone was seventies when there was added functionality of material management. The biggest extensions came in the nineties when there was a significant increase of servers performance and ERP systems could be more complex. Suppliers began to develop new modules for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), analytics named Business Intelligence (BI), Warehouse Management System (WMS) and others. Expansion of Internet and secure connections began also cause of develop the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). ERP systems are more complex so implementation of this systems are more complex too because it extends to most processes in the company. Implementation starts by selecting an ERP system in relation to the processes maps of the company. Then it is necessary to manage whole process of the implementation and write target concepts of each parts. Equally important is the data preparation and cleaning of data base for migrate to a new ERP system. After programming, editing and parameterization of the required functions and processes following phase of testing. If all goes as expected and acceptance document is approved, ERP system is prepared to productive mode.