eOrdering begins with the issue of an order by a buyer and ends with the receipt of an order response from the supplier, by electronic means. The process may include an order change or cancellation advice from the buyer and a shipping/dispatch advice from the supplier. Ordering is an important phase of the public procurement process, and has a direct connection with the catalogue and the invoice. There is a strong desire from both contracting authorities (buyers) and economic operators (suppliers) to achieve efficiency across the procurement process through automation. This requires a specific structure, ensuring the flow of information between different parts of the process, and specific models, ensuring data synchronisation.

PEPPOL’s vision is to make it possible for economic operators to receive orders electronically from any public sector awarding entity in Europe, and to respond to such orders. The solutions provided by PEPPOL demonstrate that electronic orders can be exchanged and processed without manual intervention across EU borders. This lowers the cost of entering data into systems and it reduces ongoing operating costs.

To realise this vision, the PEPPOL project deliverables include:

• eOrdering specifications for cross-border trade, based on the work carried out in the CEN BII workshops

• Open platform for document exchange via the PEPPOL transport infrastructure

• Pilot evaluation guidelines and testing facilities

• Development of open source software components and demonstrator tools

• Documented benchmarking and best practices
   

PEPPOL enables interoperability by reducing organisational, semantic and technical barriers. Moreover, PEPPOL provides the opportunity for contracting authorities and their suppliers to expand their access to the wider EU market, while benefiting from increased opportunities and efficiencies.

PEPPOL is currently inviting contracting authorities and their suppliers to pilot these solutions.

For more detailed information about the PEPPOL project, its components, ICT Architecture, and specifications, please follow the link to the PEPPOL EIA (Enterprise Interoperability Architecture) repository or send us an e-mail to: questions@peppol.eu.