Announced: UBL Procurement and Transportation Technical Committees

On the same day that the BRAC Recommendations were approved, the OASIS UBL Technical Committee announced the formation of the Procurement and Transportation Sub-committees.

The Procurement and Transportation Sub-committees have been set up to expand the number of UBL-enabled electronic document implementations. These implementations are crucial to the promotion of new technologies. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) will be the major beneficiaries of widespread UBL-enabled electronic processing. Right now SMEs use fax machines as their primary means of electronic business. However, fax messages do nothing to eliminate manual data entry and the associated transaction costs.

Trade Associations in Northern Virginia should follow the lead of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and set up UBL Validation Services. The UBL Validation services provide a trusted-third party verification of document correctness. Acting now to support UBL-enabled business infrastructure improvements will help Northern Virginia retain the current leadership position in E-Commerce and critical Internet business processing.