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GS1 Data Excellence News – October 2014

Table of content

New Data Quality video released

GS1 establishes a solid foundation for collaborative commerce and empowers businesses to share accurate and complete data, while complying with new and emerging regulations. In the video, you can listen to testimonials from industry and discover the key role GS1 plays in bringing data into the digital world. You will also learn about:

  • The challenges organisations are facing today in managing product data
  • How the 1169/2011 EU regulation will improve the consumer’s experience
  • The journey that will bring the product data into the digital world
  • How GS1 helps in setting the rules of the data dialogue
Watch the video now

Accomplished leader in Data Quality joins GS1 Global Office

Lorraine Knight has joined the GS1 Global Office as Director of Data Quality EMEA. Lorraine has over 20 years of experience in leadership, business development, and management positions in the information supply chain industry. As Director Data Quality EMEA, Lorraine will support the initiatives of GS1 in the EMEA region as well as the GS1 Data Quality Strategy in conjunction with the Data Excellence Board and the GS1 community.

For questions on Data Quality, contact Lorraine Knight at lorraine.knight@gs1.org

New Data Quality training at the GS1 in Europe regional forum

At the Europe Regional Forum in Nice there will be a Data Quality training session held on Monday 3 November 2014. The session, titled Data Quality Simplified, will be held from 09:30-17:00. The session will concentrate on Data Quality and the New Document on New Line Introduction for Manufactures focusing on a five-step best practice process.

GDSN Updates

15 Million items in the GS1 Global Registry

The GS1 Global Registry of the Global Data Synchronisation Network continues its unmatched growth, now reaching 15 million items. The GS1 Global Registry is a directory operated by GS1 that allows companies to synchronise standardised product data with trading partners worldwide. It is one of the most essential tools within the GS1 Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN®), which provides a powerful environment for secure and continuous synchronisation of accurate data between businesses.
Today, over 25,000 companies have made the GS1 GDSN a cornerstone of their supply chain initiatives across multiple industry sectors. GDSN is also being used to bring value to new business processes that were not envisioned ten years ago. In addition, many global data synchronisation users are now implementing GS1 Standards in new ways, such as in regulatory registration compliance.

"Increased speed to market, improved accuracy and a more efficient supply chain were the main reasons for our adoption of global data synchronisation" comments Roman Coba, Chief Information Officer at McCain Foods Limited "GDSN not only means that we and our trading partners are using the same data, but GS1 has also given us the data quality that we are looking for."
Since hitting the 10 million mark in 2012, GS1 has seen an increase of use of global data synchronisation in the Healthcare sector with nearly 1 million items in the Global Registry, mainly for medical devices, in the frame of the US FDA Unique Device Identification rule.

Looking forward, past the 15 million mark, GS1 expects to see an overall increase in usage of GDSN in several different vertical markets, including Healthcare, Retail, Food Service and Custom Agencies. There will be a growing demand for data around how a product is delivered to market, including handling instructions, traceability attributes, nutrition information, regulatory compliance and classification. Demand for more visible data, such as nutritional information and product specification, will increase dramatically driven by regulations, consumers, and the growth of multi-channel shopping. Adopting an industry standard solution like GDSN would be the answer to these requirements.

For more information, read our press release

GDSN: Major Release to increase efficiency and support regulatory requirements

GDSN is improving its network by making it faster to adopt and more flexible than ever. Its next Major Release brings flexibility in order to increase efficiency, support future regulatory requirements and allows users to quickly react and to adjust accordingly as their business expands.

To prepare the Major Release, GDSN will create a virtual environment of the new network for Data Pools to begin testing. These Data Pools will be tested by a neutral 3rd party testing company, The Drummond Group, to ensure their compliance with the new version of the network. The network will then migrate from the current version (2.8) to the new version 3.1 from 6 - 12 May 2016, which is the necessary time frame required to migrate the Global RegistryTM, Data Pools and Trading Partners. The network will not be accessible during that time.
As a reminder, the key milestones between 2014 and 2016 approved by the community include:

For more information on the Major Release, visit our website https://www.gs1.org/majorrelease

GPC expands to the horticulture sector

The GS1 Global Product Classification (GPC) has created new classification standards around Horticulture. These include several new GPC families, classes, and bricks to accurately classify horticultural products such as plants and flowers.

The structure is based on the existing Botanical Taxonomy, the most common and widely accepted way to classify living beings. Botanists around the world already agree on the division in genus and species, based on the work of 18th Century Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus and supported by modern DNA research. Taxonomy is also used in commercial processes, and, therefore is an important addition to GS1 GPC Standards.

This significant effort was spearheaded by GS1 Netherlands and is based on globally applicable taxonomical principles. In addition, the new standards have been aligned with other international requirements to ensure its globality. The proposal is based on the Taxonomy used by the International Society for Horticultural Science’s Commission on Nomenclature and Cultivar Registration, which coordinates international cooperation and appoints all International Cultivar Registration Authorities.

For more information, contact Mike Mowad at michael.mowad@gs1.org.

Unique Device Identification and the Global Data Synchronisation Network

The U.S. Federal Drug Administration’s regulatory requirements for UDI propose to address today’s supply chain and patient safety issues involving identification of medical devices, inefficient and ineffective product recalls, incomplete/adverse event reporting, and deficient hospital supply chain processes.

To implement the UDI regulation, GS1 strongly suggested that each manufacturer have a robust Master Data Management process in place as part of its data preparation process, requiring both an underlying governance structure and data quality process.

As individual attribute management related to the registration of product information in the FDA’s Global Unique Device Identification Database (GUDID) can be complex, GS1 has developed a GDSN implementation guide for UDI. It provides complete instructions on how to use a Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN) Data Pool to streamline the data registration process while leveraging the synchonisation of the same information with hospitals and other data recipients worldwide.

For more information on UDI visit the GS1 Healthcare UDI website at www.gs1.org/healthcare/udi.
For more information on GDSN guide for UDI visit the GS1 Knowledge Centre at www.gs1.org/gdsn

For more information, contact Pete Alvarez peter.alvarez@gs1.org

GS1 Source Updates

GS1 Source: implementation gathers speed

GS1 Source provides a way for brand owners and retailers to make product information available on computers, smartphones and tablets. Companies can use GS1 Source to share information about their products in-the-cloud. Application developers can then integrate this product data in their web and mobile applications.

The Standards were developed in 2014 to ensure that GS1 Source fully support the data requirements of EU 1169. This means that companies can use GS1 Source to comply with regulation from December 2014 onwards.

Five data aggregators certified

GS1 has created a certification programme to ensure that the GS1 Source framework functions as a trusted channel for brand owners to share their product information. During the certification process, data aggregators must demonstrate adequate technical performance, ability to ensure data integrity, and the correct implemention of GS1 Standards.

Since the certification programme was launched earlier this year, five data aggregators have been certified:

  • Edicom Data
  • Equadis
  • E-Way
  • GS1 Canada
  • Saphety

You can see full details at https://www.gs1.org/gs1-source-standards-certified-data-aggregators.

There are a several other data aggregators either in the process of considering certification and a beta release of GS1 Source is planned for this year.

Two important guidelines published

Two guidelines have been published recently to help in implementation:

  • GS1 Source Technical Implementation Guide for Data Aggregators, which helps GS1 Data Aggregators implement GS1 Source Standards effectively for their aggregation service.
  • Mapping between GS1 Source and GDSN, which helps GDSN users populate information in an appropriate way in order to share in B2C applications via GS1 Source.

Read the guidelines online at https://www.gs1.org/gs1-source/latest

Health & Beauty attributes in development

Currently, the GS1 Source standards are mainly focused on pre-packaged food products. For this reason, an important standards development effort is underway to enable brand owners of health and beauty products to share their product data more efficiently with mobile/web application developers.

The group has already begun work analysis of current attribute requirements and has held its first meeting on 9 October 2014. The group is actively seeking participation from companies that make or sell health and beauty products.

For more information visit www.gs1.org/gs1-source or contact Cameron Green at cameron.green@gs1.org.