By Sue Schmid on 14 February 2011
Both GS1 and EPCglobal standards are about identification, business data and communication. As part of its ongoing work to integrate the GS1 EPCglobal standards into the GS1 System, the GS1 Architecture Group has released a white paper that provides a view of the full GS1 System, inclusive of GS1 EPCglobal standards, as they relate to business data and how that data is communicated.
With the title “ICOM – An integrated view on communicating business data, a white paper on GS1 and EPC integration”, the paper’s objective is provide GS1 Member Organisations and their member companies with a common understanding of the GS1 set of standards (inclusive of GS1 EPCglobal standards) focused on:
- The types of business data
- The types of exchange of data through electronic communication and how these relate to the data types
- The commonalities and complementary nature of the respective standards.
The paper provides the reader with an overview of the foundational concepts of the GS1 System (identification and data exchange) together with an introduction to visibility.
Visibility is the concept within the GS1 System that enables stakeholders to know where things are in time and why along the entire supply/demand chain. It has been available with the use of the GS1 standards; however, the addition of GS1 EPCglobal standards enhances our users’ ability to achieve instance level visibility.
As our standards have developed over time to support our user needs, overlapping functionality now exists within the GS1 standards and services suite. After a comprehensive review of the inventory of the GS1 portfolio, their overlaps and gaps, the white paper provides input to the future description of the GS1 Architecture itself and aims to help guide GS1 to where it should look to further streamline its standards offerings.
The paper will soon be available on the GS1 Architecture website
Questions and suggestions can be raised through the GS1 Architecture Group: See “Submitting Request For Findings” on http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/process/arch_group