EDI: electronic distribution of information products

Although ED/ is finally becoming successfUl, the massive use of ED/ creates new problems like orders with outdated article numbers, price differences between expected and received invoices etc. These problems result from the poor synchronization of product information in business chains. Synchronization requires product information to be communicated between the different parties in the chain. Since this is another kind of communication than transaction communication, it should also be treated that way. In this paper a different approach to the communication of product information is introduced, based on the electronic distribution of information products. This approach is currently applied in a project considering an information warehouse.