General Information

For the last five years, GS1 has been operating the Global Standards Management Process (GSMP); our GS1 Collaborative Forum for standards development. The key to the success of GSMP is the collaboration of User Companies, Member Organizations (MO), and GS1 Staff to bring about a solution that reflects the input of the broadest possible community. The hurdles of Time, Geography and Language, however, impede participation of many trading partners.

To address this, GSMP and the GS1 Member Organization Community have developed the GSMP Local Community Network (LCN). The LCN model builds from the user groups that the MOs are running today and allows for direct input into the process by the trading partner without having to engage the central development activity of GSMP. In short, Member Organizations facilitate the relationship between users and GSMP and enable Local Community Network members to actually create and validate standards in a virtual manner.

The keys to this model are:

1. The Common Global Agenda, which allows Local Community Network members to follow and affect the standards development across the different initiatives and work groups in GSMP. Being facilitated by the GS1 Organization, this occurs without sitting through many (or any) English-language meetings, during inconvenient hours and without international travel to attend face-to-face meetings.
2. The GSMP Local Community Network Voting and Resolution Process, which allows LCN members to directly influence the outcome of the standards development process.

For established Local Community Network members and Member Organization Liaisons, click here for more detailed information.

Current Local Community Network Liaisons

Visitors who wish to refer questions to their local LCN and receive a reply in their local language should contact their respective MO Liaison: