EDIFACT in France — Automotive industry

JIT cadence, electronic kanban, rolling 12-month forecasts: French automotive runs on EDIFACT, transported over OFTP2 and the ENX network. Roughly 800 million messages a year, with no press coverage, yet without them the Mulhouse and Flins assembly lines stop.

French OEMs, tier-1 suppliers and logistics

The 2026 footprint of the French automotive industry by player type:

The SME supplier base adds roughly 5000 EDI-connected companies in France, largely through hubs operated by GEFCO, Generix Automotive, Siemens Digital Logistics or Cegid Quadra.

Galia, Odette and VDA standards

French automotive sits on three corpora of EDI standards, all derived from EDIFACT but with national profiles:

• Galia — Groupement pour l'Amélioration des Liaisons dans l'Industrie Automobile, a French association founded in 1984 by PSA, Renault and the suppliers. Defines national EDI specifications, logistic labels (Galia label), packaging norms. Since 2022 the standardisation work has converged into ECMA TC57 and Odette for Europe-wide alignment.
• Odette International (Brussels) — the European counterpart of Galia, maintains OFTP2 and the cross-cutting automotive EDIFACT recommendations. Every European OEM references Odette in its MUE.
• VDA (Verband der Automobilindustrie) — German historical standards (VDA 4905, 4915, 4938) used for flows from Renault to BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler or Bosch. Progressive migration to the EDIFACT Odette subset.
• JAMA / JAPIA — Japanese standards used by Stellantis flows with Toyota, Honda, Nissan or Japanese suppliers operating in France (Yazaki, Sumitomo, Denso).

Automotive EDIFACT messages

DELFOR and DELJIT — forecast cascade and JIT calls

The DELFOR / DELJIT pair structures the automotive supply chain:

• DELFOR announces a 3- to 12-month rolling demand horizon, updated weekly (Tuesday for Renault, Monday for Stellantis). Not a firm commitment, but the base for the supplier's S&OP plan.
• DELJIT is the firm order, issued with hourly precision (sometimes by the minute) for JIT and JIS (Just-in-Sequence) flows. A seat reference received in DELJIT at 8:30am must be delivered to the assembly-line edge at 10:00am, in the exact sequence of vehicles on the line.

A Renault DELFOR to Valeo (D.97A, Odette subset) example:

UNB+UNOC:3+RENAULT-FR:14+VALEO-FR:14+260518:0700+REN000001'
UNH+1+DELFOR:D:97A:UN:EAN004'
BGM+241+DELFOR-2026-W21+9'
DTM+137:20260518:102'
DTM+329:20260518:102'
NAD+BY+5410000000123::9'
NAD+SU+3245678901234::9'
LIN+1++5060123456789:VP'
PIA+1+SUB-REF-VALEO:SA'
QTY+1:1200'
DTM+2:20260525:102'
QTY+1:1500'
DTM+2:20260601:102'
QTY+1:1500'
DTM+2:20260608:102'
QTY+99:8500'
DTM+359:20261001:102'
UNS+S'
UNT+15+1'
UNZ+1+REN000001'

And a Stellantis DELJIT to Faurecia for the Mulhouse assembly line:

UNB+UNOC:3+STELLANTIS-FR:14+FAURECIA-FR:14+260518:0830+STL000789'
UNH+1+DELJIT:D:97A:UN:OD9620'
BGM+242+DELJIT-MULHOUSE-2026-518-08+9'
DTM+137:202605180830:203'
NAD+BY+3245678100007::9'
NAD+CN+3245678100099::9'
LIN+1++5099887766554:VP'
PIA+1+SEAT-LINE-MULHOUSE-A:SA'
QTY+186:24'
DTM+10:202605181000:203'
LOC+11+ASS-A12'
RFF+SI:SEQ-202605180830-024'
UNS+S'
UNT+10+1'
UNZ+1+STL000789'

Reading keys: QTY+186 = sequence quantity, DTM+10 = requested delivery date+time in CCYYMMDDHHMM format (qualifier 203), LOC+11 = precise location (ASS-A12 = assembly line A, position 12), RFF+SI = sequence number for JIS.

Transport — OFTP2 and the ENX network

European automotive, France included, runs massively on OFTP2 (RFC 5024, ODETTE File Transfer Protocol 2) as its transport protocol. Key properties:

• TCP/IP sessions with TLS on port 6619 (cleartext on 3305, avoid on the public internet)
• CMS signing and encryption at file level (decoupled from TLS)
• End-to-end signed receipts (EERP, NERP) for non-repudiation
• Restart-on-interrupt — critical for multi-gigabyte DELFOR files
• Multi-hop routing through Odette mailbox hubs

The ENX Association (European Network Exchange, founded in 2000 by PSA, Renault, BMW, Daimler, VW, Audi) operates a private IP network between OEMs and suppliers. ENX provides the transport layer for OFTP2 and guarantees SLA and security (segmentation, IPsec, audits). Stellantis and Renault suppliers are strongly encouraged to join ENX (paid OEM membership, lighter supplier access).

Electronic kanban, sequencing and CKD/SKD

Three advanced operational flows specific to automotive:

• Electronic kanban — automatic replenishment signal triggered by the scan of a kanban card (or a container). The OEM emits a DELJIT for a few hours to a few days of need, indexed on the reference consumed on the production line.
• Sequencing (JIS, Just-in-Sequence) — parts (seats, instrument panels, bumpers) are delivered in the exact sequence of vehicles on the line. DELJIT carries the sequence number (RFF+SI segment) and broadcasting typically repeats every 30 to 60 minutes. Faurecia Mulhouse delivers seats in JIS to Stellantis for Peugeot 308 and DS 4.
• CKD/SKD (Completely / Semi Knocked Down) — assembly kits shipped to overseas plants (Morocco, Turkey, Brazil for Stellantis; Korea, historically Iran for Renault). The CKD DESADV lists every subassembly with Galia/Odette packaging identifiers and HS customs code.

Roadmap Galia 4 → Galia 5

Galia specifications evolve in major generations. State of the art in 2026 and next steps:

• Galia 4 — current generation, published 2018-2020, aligned on Odette MMOG/LE V5 (Materials Management Operation Guideline). Covers DELFOR/DELJIT/DESADV/INVOIC in EDIFACT D.97A and D.07B depending on the profile.
• Galia 5 — under specification 2025-2026, integrates battery traceability requirements (EU Regulation 2023/1542), digital product passport, and scope-3 carbon footprint required by CSRD/ESRS.
• Galia / Odette label v3 — new logistic label adopted in 2024, adds a GS1 Digital Link QR code alongside the linear barcode and the DataMatrix.

2026 reform — impact on the automotive supply chain

The French e-invoicing reform hits automotive, but not the way one might think at first:

• Automotive EDIFACT INVOIC is not exempt — Stellantis Mulhouse billing Faurecia Mulhouse must transit a PDP in UBL or CII format, like every French B2B flow.
• EDIFACT → UBL/CII conversion done on the PDP or EDI provider side (Generix, Edicom, Cegid). Industrial companies do not replace their ERPs for outbound issuance.
• Self-billing — common in automotive (the OEM issues the invoice on behalf of the supplier from the RECADV). Compatible with the reform provided the outbound invoice transits a PDP and carries the mandatory CGI mentions.
• DELFOR/DELJIT/DESADV/RECADV unchanged — these are operational flows (order, delivery, receipt) outside the direct tax scope. They remain on EDIFACT over OFTP2 / ENX.

Sector-specific calendar: receipt September 1, 2026, large-enterprise issuance (Stellantis, Renault, Valeo, Faurecia) September 1, 2026, SME-supplier issuance September 1, 2027.

Sources

• Galia — French automotive EDI standards .
• ENX Association — European automotive network .
• Odette International — OFTP2 and recommendations .
• VDA (Verband der Automobilindustrie) — German standards.
• RFC 5024 — OFTP2 .

Further reading

• France — e-invoicing mandate 2026 / 2027
• EDIFACT in France — Grocery and retail
• French VAT regimes and e-invoicing
• EDIFACT — standard reference
• OFTP2 — ODETTE File Transfer Protocol
• DELFOR D.96A — forecasts
• DELJIT D.96A — JIT calls
• Tool — OFTP2 decoder
• Tool — EDIFACT validator