Ship.dat

Ship.dat - IDEAlliance Standard 139-1999

The Ship.dat standard will be revitalized in early 2003. Please feel free to download a current copy of the Ship.dat Record Layout. If you are interested in participating in the Ship.dat Working Group or have questions or comments please contact:

David Steinhardt
dsteinhardt@idealliance.org

Download Record Layouts

About Ship.dat

Ship.dat is the industry database standard for efficient communications among those providing delivery instructions, transportation planning, and distribution services. It is intended to account for every possible preparation and presentation variable that could exist within a shipment of printed product.

Non-mail delivery represents nearly half of the output of print manufacturing facilities. Now, there is a systematic electronic file or format standard within the industry to address the unique make-up attributes of these print products.

Industry leaders believe it is imperative to have documentation for all printed outbound product types. This means non-mail and mail alike. The Ship.dat document has been built from and maps closely to Mail.dat, a widely known standard for handling mailed printed matter. This now gives control over both mail and non-mail printed products.

Ship.dat is a dynamic planning tool for shipping and transportation facilities. It brings greater efficiency in transportation and provides a form ready to transfer to any transportation planning computer program. It gives identification of consolidations by packages and gives the shipper detailed direction for automated or manual pallet loading, with unprecedented assurance of accuracy

If you are the product owner (publisher, cataloguer, direct marketer, retailer, etc.) or the ( printer-shipper, wholesaler, distributor, etc.), then you will want to take advantage of Ship.dat. Ask your trading partners to use Ship.dat.

You will need a provider code and a Ship.dat record layout. Both are available from IDEAlliance.