A communiqué from Russell F. Moody of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) reports on the recent release of the EIA Standard 836 for public review and comment. Developed by member organizations of the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA), the EIA-836 standard for 'Configuration Management Data Exchange and Interoperability' is a fundamental reference for business-to-business access, sharing and exchange of CM data, and for the development, mapping and use of CM related tools, systems and databases. The EIA-836 XML vocabulary and grammar can be used within XML frameworks to facilitate interoperability between trading partner systems, databases, and people performing configuration management and product support functions throughout a product's life cycle. EIA-836 supports CM data exchange regardless of trading partner information system implementation or method of data transfer. EIA-836 utilizes the Extensible Markup Language (XML), the emerging lingua franca of e-commerce data exchange, in defining CM data elements, and data element relationships, as well as a set of XML schemas and XML document templates for the exchange of CM business objects such as Engineering Change Proposals, Request for Deviations, and a host of others. The EIA-836 Business Objects can be tailored by users to suit specific trading partner situations and different industry domains. The EIA-836 development team is actively collaborating with other e-business initiatives including STEP (ISO 10303), the Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) Program, and the Aerospace Industries Association Electronic Commerce Working Group (ECWG) to harmonize related efforts." The comment and review period for EIA-836 version 0.3 will extend through July 20, 2001.

From Configuration Management Data Items": "A set of ten MIL-STD-973 replacement DIDs supporting configuration management have been issued... The new DIDs provide for submission in XML format. EIA-836 has developed XML templates and associated documents to facilitate generation and submission of Data Items in accordance with the DIDs, using MIL-HDBK-61 for guidance. The objective is to provide document authors with the option to create documents in XML using templates based on an XML Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD is an XML schema specification for a data item document based on the DID and using MIL-HDBK-61 for guidance. XML documents can be created using any one of a large, and growing number of low and no cost XML authoring tools. An XSL style sheet is also being provided to allow the resulting XML documents to be viewed in an XML enabled browser in a human friendly form."