ETIM (standard)

ETIM Deutschland e. V. (ElektroTechnisches InformationsModell, or Electro-Technical Information Model) is an initiative to standardize the electronic exchange of product data for electrical and electronic products (electrical installation products, home appliances and consumer electronics) to enable the electronic trading of these products. The standard is designed to meet the requirements of the electrical industry and allows for the uniform, technical description of electrical goods and their assignment to a class of products.

ETIM classification

The ETIM Classification model is built using the following categories or entities:[1]

  • Product groups
  • Product classes
  • Synonyms (Keywords)
  • Features
  • Values
  • Units

The product groups each contain a set of product classes associated by theme. A product class can only be assigned to one product group. Within the product class, comparable or "alike" products are classified together. The name of an product class can have synonyms assigned in order to specify alternative names for the product class. The same synonym can be assigned to more than one product class. Each product class is assigned a list of features that unambiguously describe the product. This creates the ETIM classification.

This standardization allows suppliers of electrical goods to be found on the basis of class name (including synonyms) or of technical features.

Release Format

The content of the ETIM model is identical in all member countries, which means that any ETIM class in use in a country has exactly the same features with the same identifying code for all the countries. However, in the past the release format was slightly different per country. Because this could and did indeed cause some confusion, ETIM decided to develop a new uniform international release format based on XML, a modern and flexible carrier for the ETIM model. Starting from ETIM 6.0 ETIM IXF will be considered THE international standard ETIM release format. The ETIM IXF format is multilingual, so it can contain multiple language versions of the ETIM model in one file. For the complete and detailed format description we refer to the separate document on ETIM IXF, which you can find in the download section of this website.

Every country can still decide to have additional country-specific release formats. The ETIM CMT master database already supports a range of exports formats like ASCII (TXT), CSV, ACCESS and EXCEL. Please contact your local ETIM organization for more information on country specific formats in your country.[2]

Exchange Format Product Data

The ETIM data model is completely uniform, differing only in the language.

The exchange format for classified product data, not to be confused with the release format for the data model, however is set and defined by each local ETIM organization individually. ETIM International recommends the BMEcat® standard, which is the most common exchange format within the ETIM countries. However, in some countries specific national formats are still in use and accepted as sector standard, sometimes in addition to BMEcat®.[3]

ETIM versions
  • The "ETIM Clearing Center - Specification Product Data Exchange Format Version 1.02" uses BMEcat 1.01 as the basis.
  • ETIM BMEcat 1.2 contains the ETIM-2.0 specification and is adapted to BMEcat 1.2.
  • ETIM version 3.0, 30 May 2005, in German and English.
  • ETIM version 4.0, 15 January 2008, in German, English and Dutch.
  • On 27 March 2008, a corrected version was published. The changes apply only to some units.
  • ETIM version 5.0, May 2011.
  • ETIM version 6.0, 29 April 2014, in German, English and Dutch.
  • ETIM version 7.0, 4 September 2017, in English and Dutch (for the electrical and HVAC/sanitary sector also in French and German)

Cooperation with other organizations

Since 1 January 2006 ETIM is a member of eCl@ss and vice versa. eCl@ss is the equivalent of ETIM in for field machines and plant construction. Both organizations have set a goal of unifying the classifications to a standard and are working together with the organizations VDMA, ZVEI, and the DIN.

Industrial products and services categorization standards
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References
  1. "Classification". ETIM International. 2014.
  2. "ETIM Releases". ETIM International. 2014.
  3. "Exchange format product data". ETIM International. 2014.
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