EDI Workforce

Personnel from various function areas will, one way or another, be involved with EDI. For example, the accounts payable manager or clerk should be familiar with EDI operations if EDI invoicing is in place. The procurement manager or the buyer should be very well aware of EDI operations if the Purchase Orders are transmitted electronically. The IT personnel will be heavily involved with EDI to support the infrastructure. The same can apply to many other departments, such as shipping and logistics, human resources, and finance.

However, an EDI coordinator role should exist. The usage of this role varies in organizations. The EDI team can consist of a part-time person doing EDI for a couple of hours a week to a 15 people EDI team. All this depends on the organization's size and its usage of EDI. Typically, one EDI coordinator or one EDI Team will be the focal point of contact to support EDI operations. The responsibilities of this team will be to add and maintain trading partners, solve issues that arise, and maintain and update the system. Typically the EDI coordinator role will be very well-known in the organization by most departments. This EDI team will also, almost daily, be in touch with the company's trading partners. Typically the EDI coordinator role, whether it's a team or just one part-time person, will be placed under the Information Technology or the umbrella and will most likely report to the IT Manager.