THE eCl@ss STANDARD

Everything about the cross-industry master-data standard for products and services. Learn more about how you can participate in development and usage examples.

eCl@ss HANDLES THE LANGUAGE OF THINGS

eCl@ss has established itself internationally as the only ISO/IEC-compliant industry standard, and is thus the worldwide reference-data standard for the classification and unambiguous description of products and services.

BENEFITS FOR THE ENTIRE VALUE CHAIN

With eCl@ss, product master data can be exchanged digitally across all borders – across sectors, countries, languages and organizations. There are no more barriers in the nature of things. That’s why the standard has long since established itself in industry, commerce, trades and the service sector.

CLEAR CATEGORIES – INDIVIDUAL IDENTIFIERS

A large proportion of the goods and services traded worldwide are represented in eCl@ss. The 39 subject areas include, for example, electrical engineering, construction, logistics, food, medicine, optics, automotive, laboratory technology and office supplies. In this way, eCl@ss develops various industry standards into a uniform, cross-sector standard.

INDUSTRY 4.0 AND SMART MANUFACTURING

eCl@ss serves as a semantics for machine-to-machine communication.
Unambiguous information eliminates errors and enables quantum leaps in the production and distribution of goods. Products move independently through production operations, and unrestricted, accurate information flows enable processes to organize and structure themselves.

LICENSES AND RELEASES: BETTER EVERY YEAR

A new eCl@ss release is published during the first quarter of each year. Each release represents an update of the existing standard in a new version.

The current release, numbered 10.1, adds more than 570 commodity classes, 2,100 new properties and 66,000 new commodity class-property relationships.

LANGUAGES: DECISIVE FOR DECISION-MAKERS

Even if eCl@ss lets all objects speak a common language, people haven’t yet reached this point. For this reason, eCl@ss users place high value on the variety of languages offered. In addition to full translations into English and German, partial translations are provided in French, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish, Czech, Portuguese and other languages.

CODEVELOPMENT: THE STANDARD DEPENDS ON ITS USERS

Anyone can contribute change requests for eCl@ss’ further development – no matter whether they’re members, licensees or simply interested experts. Change requests can relate to the addition or revision of commodity classes or properties.

RULE NUMBER ONE: TRANSPARENCY FOR ALL

The further development of the standard follows rules that are transparent and based on international norms. The release plan is tiered; major releases, which additionally include structural changes, alternate with minor releases, which offer new content with unchanged structure.