Common Commodity Codes
This report identifies the major benefits to the construction industry in achieving common commodity formats, or ultimately common codes that would be acceptable and usable by the entire industry. A common commodity is a component which is generic in use and whose manufacture is usually governed by industry dimensional and material standards. Some of these include:
- Improved procurement through greater reliability
- Reduction in inventory
- Better identification of shipments
- Inventory
- Surplus materials
- Standard design criteria
- Improvements in quality, startup, accounting, and maintenance
CII member companies’ support of the Common Commodity Code User’s group of the Construction Industry Action Group (CIAG) efforts to establish standard material formats will simplify and standardize the automated transfer of data between trading partners; this includes engineers, owners, contractors, distributors, and manufacturers. Finally, any computerized transfer of information, whether in EDI, CAD, bar coding, imaging, voice, or other system, would be immeasurably improved by the use of common formats and codes. (SD-92, p. 16)
