FAST - A Research Project in Electronic Commerce

FAST involves both the creation of an EDI-based prototype parts broker and the operation of an actual procurement service utilizing the prototype broker. FAST's intention is not so much to create a new distribution channel for participating vendors as to create a procurement tool for customers. The FAST project is therefore unusual among EDI efforts in that it looks at procurement from the customer's/buyer's perspective. FAST's procurement service invites customers to request quotes and place orders via EDI (using FAST's proprietary format or X12/EDIFACT). FAST acquires curement commodity, because an electronic parts broker was regarded as key to promoting fast prototyping of new computer architectures and electronic systems. In addition, it was expected to be easy to find an EDI-capable customer community for the chosen commodity. The availability of the MOSIS fabrication service at USC/ISI (an electronic silicon broker) pointed FAST to an email-liter-and returns (via EDI) competing quotes from multiple online vendors. When ordered , merchandise is drop shipped to FAST's customers and FAST is invoiced for the goods. FAST pays the vendor and invoices the customer. The broker currently serves about 120 registered customer accounts and has acquired off-the-shelf parts from more than 2'000 suppliers. To date, FAST has delivered more than 30'000 quotes and sold over 13'000 line items worth more than $5 million. Over the last few years, the commodities supplied by the broker have been expanded from electronic items to practically any type of off-the-shelf item. FAST is unusual among EDI efforts in that it looks at procurement from the customer's/buy-er's perspective. It concentrates on automating the total procurement process while recognizing that human intervention cannot be fully excluded from the process. As a result, much attention is currently focussed on how to efficiently integrate the manual and automated components involved in the total process. stead, most larger distributors used proprietary software (" inplant terminals ") that allowed larger customers access via modem to the vendors' on-site inventory databases. Therefore FAST decided to redefine its original X12/EDIFACT communications criteria and interact with the vendor community via multiple channels (see below). This support for heteroge-neity has since grown to be one of FAST's special and unique strengths. The original motivation behind the FAST project was to explore, in an actual electronic brokerage setting, the issues involved in automating the total procurement process. This motivation sets FAST apart from most contemporary electronic commerce efforts that focus on …