The Chem eStandards initiative phase two work began in July 2000, supported especially by BASF, The Dow Chemical Company and DuPont, "to develop a broad set of nonproprietary, Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards to facilitate business-to-business data exchange across the chemical industry worldwide. The initiative's second phase focused on logistics, invoicing, forecasting, exchange and multinational interactions. As a result of efforts during Phases 1 and 2, over 700 data elements have been defined and 47 new transactions can be conducted using the standards. More than 1,000 pages of standards documentation containing technical and implementation information have been created." The 47 transaction types are formally modeled in XML DTDs covering Customers, Catalogs and RFQs, Purchase Orders, Logistics, Financials, Forecasting, and Exchange Interactions.

DTDs are provided online for: Qualification Request, Qualification Response, Customer Specific Catalog Update, Product Catalog Update, Request for Quote, Order Cancel, Order Cancel Response, Order Change, Order Create, Order Response, Order Status Request, Order Status Response, Carrier Weights, Freight Bill, Load Tender Motor, Load Tender Ocean, Load Tender Rail, Load Tender Response, Shipment Status, Ship Notice, Invoice, Payment, Payment Detail, Payment Response, Delivery Receipt, Delivery Receipt Response, Demand Forecast, Demand Forecast Response, Demand Plan, Demand Plan Response, Inventory Actual Usage, Inventory Actual Usage Response, Replenishment Proposal Cancel, Replenishment Proposal Change, Replenishment Proposal Request, Replenishment Proposal Response, Supply Plan, Supply Plan Response, Posting Accept, Posting Accept Response, Posting Cancel, Posting Cancel Response, Posting Change, Posting Create, Posting Response, Posting Status Request, Posting Status Response.

DTD Examples: Cancel Response DTD [cache]; Qualification Request DTD [cache]; Qualification Response DTD [cache]; Customer Specific Catalog Update [cache].

On February 5-8, 2001, CIDX held meetings in Clearwater, FL to discuss Chem eStandards support and to convene working committees. "This meeting marked the launch of the new CIDX as the chemical industry standards body and support organization for the Chem eStandards." Various working (sub) committees that were established: (1) Architecture Committee; (2) Message Development Committee: Customer/Order/Catalog Subcommittee, Logistics Subcommittee, Finance Subcommittee, Demand Forecasting Subcommittee, Exchange Interaction Subcommitte; (3) Marketing Committee.

"Chem eStandards are the uniform standards of data exchange developed specifically for the buying, selling and delivery of chemicals. They are based on the universally recognized 'gold standard' for electronic data exchange, eXtensible Mark-Up Language (XML). Chem eStandards are open, platform-independent, uniform and available free of charge."