Industry group PromoStandards has announced the development of a new data communication standard for configurable product data, pricing and decoration. PromoStandards, a group seeking efficiencies through standards for the promotional products industry, counts BIC Graphic, Essent, Facilisgroup, Geiger, HALO, Hit Promotional Products, Polyconcept, SanMar Staples Promotional Products and Starline among its membership.

“Well-formed orders are not possible without well-formed data,” says Jon Norris, vice president of operations at Starline. “The permutations that are present in a customizable manufacturing and decoration industry are mindnumbing. The industry’s most popular pen has over 72,000 possible combinations of product configuration before you start to decorate. PromoStandards now has the ability to model even the most complicated products this industry has to offer.”

PromoStandards developed its solution with the intention that it apply to the full life cycle of an order, from product data used to in pricing and configurable orders, to developing accurate line item details used in invoicing an order.

The industry has sought solutions for transmitting well-formed orders, but Norris notes that technological challenges and supply chain push-back has hampered its success. He says, “Nearly every other industry has long since solved this challenge. Our industry’s situation is unique, every single order that we process has unique or custom attributes that in their simplest form start at decoration.”

PromoStandards plans to introduce the orders standard at the PPAI Technology Summit this August, alongside a number of other technology standards it has in development, including a product data specification standard, a base pricing data standard, a pricing and decoration configuration standard, and a purchase order standard. It is currently working on an invoicing specification that is fully integrated with the purchase order standard to be introduced at Tech Summit.

The 2016 Tech Summit will be held August 17-18 in conjunction with the PPAI North American Leadership Conference at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in San Francisco, California. The annual event brings industry technology professionals, including IT directors, chief information officers and business analysts, together to share best practices and case studies, and to discuss solutions to the industry’s technology challenges. Registration is now open.

Norris, chair of the PPAI Technology Committee, which steers the summit’s programming, says, “I would highly suggest each industry firm, where applicable, send a technology representative to the 2016 summit. In my personal opinion, this has the potential to be the most impactful event your organization attended in the last decade. As industry consolidation, margin pressures and globalization bear down with an iron fist on this industry, we must be prepared to put our big-boy pants on and play ball.”

Learn more about PromoStandards and its mission at www.promostandards.org.