If you’ve spent any time managing product data in the electrical industry, you know the pain: every trading partner expects data in a different format, product descriptions don’t match across systems, and your team spends hours manually mapping and cleaning information that should just flow.
That’s exactly the problem ETIM North America and the Industry Data Exchange Association (IDEA) are working together to solve.
ETIM—the international classification standard for electrical products—provides a structured, uniform way to describe products using standardized classes, features, values, and units. It’s a common language for product data, used in over 20 countries and available in 17+ languages. IDEA, jointly owned by NEMA and NAED, is the U.S. electrical industry’s leading data syndication and standards organization, serving 80 of the top 100 distributors through its flagship IDEA Connector platform.
When the industry’s classification standard and the industry’s leading data platform align, everyone benefits.
A partnership that keeps deepening
The collaboration between ETIM NA and IDEA has been building for years, but the momentum over the past twelve months tells the real story.
IDEA is a Solution Provider member of ETIM NA. And in 2025, IDEA’s President and CEO, Patrick Knight, joined the ETIM NA Board of Directors—bringing a direct connection to the hundreds of manufacturers and distributors who rely on IDEA’s tools every day.
“By integrating the ETIM classification standard into our HDM-based IDEA Connector and supporting translation efforts, we aim to bring greater efficiency to all industry stakeholders,” Knight said upon joining the board.
That integration is already underway. ETIM version 10 is now available in IDEA Connector alongside versions 7 through 9, giving manufacturers the flexibility to provide the ETIM versions their distributor partners need. And through IDEA’s Harmonized Data Model (HDM), manufacturers can syndicate product attributes in ETIM format, IDEA CAS format, or a hybrid of both—without duplicating effort or compromising data quality.
What this means for manufacturers
For manufacturers, this collaboration addresses one of the most persistent headaches in product data management: maintaining multiple formats for multiple customers. Classify your products once using ETIM, syndicate through IDEA Connector, and your distributor partners receive standardized, high-quality data they can actually use—for eCommerce, parametric search, and digital catalogs.
Because ETIM is an international standard used across 20+ countries, manufacturers who classify their products once can share that same structured data with trading partners in North America and around the world. That’s one classification effort with global reach.
What this means for distributors
For distributors, the ETIM-IDEA collaboration means more consistent, structured product data flowing into your systems from the manufacturers you work with. Less manual cleanup. Better product discovery for your customers. And alignment with a global standard that European counterparts are already using.
When product data arrives with standardized ETIM classes, features, and values, your ERP, PIM, and eCommerce systems can process it without the manual mapping that eats up time and introduces errors. That’s fewer wrong orders, fewer returns, and a better digital experience for the contractors and end users you serve.
Where it’s headed
ETIM NA and IDEA have signaled that this collaboration will continue to deepen, with a shared focus on making standards adoption practical and accessible for the entire electrical industry. A recent joint webinar featuring IDEA’s Angela Baraks and ETIM NA’s Mary Shaw demonstrated how manufacturers can use IDEA’s platform to syndicate ETIM-classified data—showing the industry what’s possible when standards and tools come together.
ETIM North America will also be attending the 2026 NAED National Meeting in Orlando May 12-14, where they will be offering an executive session (“Turning Product Data into Profit: How ETIM Helps Manufacturers and Distributors Drive Efficiency, Cut Costs, and Grow Revenue“) as well as an open house for attendees to learn more about the model and the collaborative efforts to continue growing its adoption and usage in our region.
The electrical industry’s digital transformation depends on a solid data foundation. ETIM and IDEA are building it together.
To learn more about ETIM North America and membership, click here. To learn how IDEA helps manufacturers and distributors with product data, visit www.idea4industry.com.