The VETmessage Foundation enables buyers of animal medicine and other veterinarian products to receive electronically, and to download directly to their systems, details regarding the products ordered. This resource makes the tracking & tracing of these products reliable and simple.

It is imperative that a veterinarian or supplier of animal medicine administers the correct product details, per batch and per customer. These details are imperative for comprehensive and accurate tracking & tracing and contribute to a transparent food production chain and therefore to food safety. On the basis of the current techniques of internet and the XML communication standard, a number of FIDIN members have set up an independent branch-wide platform under the name of the VETmessage Foundation.

The electronic message traffic of the VETmessage Foundation is available to all parties in the chain and is not restricted to membership of FIDIN. Every buyer of the participating suppliers’ products can link in to the system through their software packet. Arrangements to realise this connection have been made by VETmessage with the most important suppliers of software. A connection can be arranged with your own software supplier.
The system will be used in the first instance for electronically sending and receiving packing notes. This relieves the administration enormously in regard to tracking & tracing. The system will be used for sending and receiving even more information at a later stage. Electronic reporting of side effects, electronic ordering and receiving invoices etc. are examples.

With this system, the FIDIN is striving for comprehensive tracking and tracing. Initiators of the VETmessage Foundation are: Aesculaap, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Dopharma, Elanco, Intervet Nederland, Janssen-Cilag and Virbac Nederland

Gathering the packing notes from the suppliers
The rough packing note data is made available by means of an export from the administration software. They are subsequently read in and sent “packed” in a XML message to the Tri-ennium VETMessage hosting platform.

Processing the packing notes received in hosting platform
The incoming XML messages with the packing note details are decoded and validated, and various other processes take place (depending on the way the packing note information is presented). The address details are added to the information by means of debts and/or delivery address. When all the information is complete, it is converted to a general data format, also known as Canonical Data Format (CDM).

A conversion from this data format can be done to any data format desired (depending on the application used by the customer).
 

Request for packing note details by customer
The customer makes a request to the Tri-ennium VETMessage hosting platform. In other words, the customer asks: Are there any packing notes ready for me? This request is handled by the hosting platform and packing notes that are ready are sent to the customer as XML messages. The packing note information is taken out of the XML messages and presented to the customer’s administration software.

*) The FIDIN, the Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Animal Medicine in the Netherlands, and their members, is the representative organisation of the animal medicine industry in the Netherlands. The membership role consists not only of enterprises that mainly develop their own products but also of companies that import and sell, sometimes under their own name. The member enterprises distribute their animal medicine via the veterinarian for the most important part. As the representative of their member enterprises, FIDIN aims at the current developments in the branch, internationally as well as nationally.