IRVING, Texas, Oct. 2, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- bTrade, inc. announced today that Ralph Berwanger, bTrade's Ambassador to Standards, was elected to Chair the Trade Facilitation and Business Process Group (TBG) of UN/CEFACT during the meeting of the UN/CEFACT Forum in Geneva.
Mr. Berwanger served as Vice Chair of the Electronic Business Transition Work Group (eBTWG), a UN/CEFACT body that defines ebXML standards for the Global Community (industry consortia, industry organizations, multi-national corporations, etc.), and domestically serves as the Vice Chair of ANSI ASC X12, the North American standards organization responsible for the electronic business standards.
The TBG is a group within newly created UN/CEFACT Forum. The forum consolidates all the previous and new work of UN/CEFACT, providing greater collaboration and cooperation within the organization. The TBG blends activities previously conducted by four working groups, one of which was the eBTWG. This action places international trade facilitation into the forefront of UN/CEFACT activity.
The eBusiness Transition Working Group (eBTWG) was created by UN/CEFACT in July 2001 to progress UN/CEFACT's role in pioneering the development of XML-based business standards. The group built on the success of the earlier ebXML Joint Initiative between UN/CEFACT and OASIS, which delivered its first set of specifications in May 2001.
Creation of the TBG gives ebXML activities a permanent home within UN/CEFACT. In addition to the ebXML projects, work items of the former EDIFACT Working Group (EWG), Business Process Analysis Working Group, and International Trade Facilitation Working Group have been incorporated into the TBG. Seventeen working groups have been defined under the TBG to accomplish its aggressive work program. These include activities for defining business process rules for secure collaboration over the Internet using ebXML. These business process rules will represent and resemble many unique "workflows" adopted in many industries.
Ralph Berwanger, a well-known industry expert, has 20 years experience designing and building electronic commerce solutions and has been involved in EDI compliance activities for more than a decade.
He has been an active contributor towards the ANSI ASC X12 standard development since 1991. During this time, he served 4 years as the Chair of the Data Security Work Group. In 1999, he was elected as Vice Chair of ASC X12 -- he was re-elected to a second term in 2001.
Mr. Berwanger became an active participant in international EDI work beginning in 1995, focusing in the area of data security. He served as the Chair of Security Work Group of the United Nations/CEFACT EDI Working Group and was a United States' designated expert to the Joint Syntax Working Group, an ISO-UN joint collaboration. Mr. Berwanger's efforts resulted in the production of the security components of International Standards Organization Standard 9735.
Since February of 2000, Mr. Berwanger has served on bTrade's executive management team as Ambassador to Standards.
About bTrade, inc.
bTrade, inc. (www.bTrade.com) has more than eleven years of experience providing over 100,000 trading partners in a Global 2000 customer base with universal platforms that offer secure data transport, translation and transformation applications. bTrade, inc. links e-Business partners and communities without requiring changes to any existing applications while dramatically reducing, if not eliminating, the associated risk, complexity, time and cost.