PAB 2

The electronic exchange and distribution of data is here to stay. However, as soon as people go outsides their ‘own’ system, there is unfortunately a lack of uniformity and a great deal of effort is required to exchange the information correctly and ready for use. This has resulted in the Ketenstandaard Bouw en Techniek, in agreements with the participating companies, deciding a few years ago to establishing a number of rules and agreements for uniform use, in the: ASCII* Product- & Trade items (PAB)

An important point of attention is that the PAB exchange format is now very outdated and no longer corresponds to today’s data needs. Due to the arrival of new formats, the PAB exchange format has not been further developed since 2007, so it is not recommended to use it for the exchange of data.**

End of IMPORT | May 1, 2025

Product data is increasingly seen as oil for the supply chain. The demand for uniform, digital product information is therefore increasing unabated. In addition, both wholesalers and end users are placing increasingly higher demands on the quality of the product data supplied by manufacturers. A logical consequence of this is that the current standards and the 2BA data pool model have grown strongly in recent years and will continue to do so. For example, think of additional information regarding environmental aspects such as CO2 footprint and circularity and the digital product passport (DPP) but also geometric product properties for digital building model (BIM).

In order to make this information fully available to your relations in the future, only the most current exchange standards are suitable. That is why it will no longer be possible to publish your product and trade data according to the PAB exchange format as of May 1, 2025. We recommend that you consult the latest exchange formats, our software partners can help you with this.

	ASCII Product- @ Trade items (PAB) 2
	ASCII Trade item classification (ICS) E5W12 – format description
	PAB 2 with ETIM international codes and extra ETIM features

* ETIM uses the term ‘ASCII’ for the GABI, PAB 1 and PAB 2 formats. However, in practice, exchange actually takes place according to the ANSI/Latin-1 (officially: ISO/IEC 8859-1) set. This is essential to exchange with 2BA. For more information: WikipediA ISO 8859-1

** Since the uniform description of the ASCII messages in the installation sector, the Ketenstandaard Bouw en Techniek foundation has decided to stop any further development. The starting point for data communication in the installation sector is the functional layout which, together with GSI Nederlands, has been incorporated into the GSI importing convention for the installation sector. The messages based on that are the sector standards which the Ketenstandaard will further develop.