Posted January 12, 2010
PTDA and BSA release V2.1 of PPIF
A joint task force of the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) and the Bearing Specialists Association recently approved a revision to the widely-used Product & Price Information Format (PPIF).
The task force, led by Carlos Ingram, vice president of Business Systems for Kaman Industrial Technologies Corporation, approved a revision to add five optional fields for country of origin. With the support of members and the board of directors of both associations, PPIF version 2.1 was released on Jan. 1 with an effective date of March 31, 2010.
Since 1999, the Product & Price Information Format (PPIF) has simplified the transmission of price and product information from suppliers to distributors by eliminating the patchwork of proprietary manufacturer pricing formats. This universally accepted format has streamlined the cumbersome, time-consuming process of updating database records to reflect current information. The widespread use of PPIF among PTDA members is a testament to its value. Distributor companies using PPIF account for 87 percent of the sales volume of PTDA distributor members; manufacturer companies using PPIF account for 94 percent of the sales volume of PTDA manufacturer members.
Why add these fields? Transacting business with government agencies requires the distributor to certify the country of origin for each product (part) number. This means flagging each part number with country code(s) that identify the product's country of origin. As more distributors do business with government agencies, this information becomes an important part of the process. Specifying the fields for this kind of information is in keeping with purpose of the format, ensuring that distributors will be able to find this information in the same fields every time the data is received. Five optional fields have been added, using the ISO country codes to identify country of origin when mutually agreed upon by the manufacturer and distributor for products requiring country of origin identification by the end user.
The task force recognizes that "country of origin" may be defined differently by various government agencies (e.g., Department of Defense, GSA, NAFTA). In addition to inclusion of the country of origin codes in the format, manufacturers will need to notify their distributors as to the definition used when specifying country of origin.
Learn more about PPIF Version 2.1 and download the format by visiting www.ptda.org/PPIF.
