ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID Drives The Next Revolution In Adaptive Retail Supply Chain Execution Real-time Inventory Visibility Requires Greater Vigilance for Data Accuracy and Global Data Synchronization

BY JOHN RADKO AND ALEX SCHUMACHER

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ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

Table of Contents Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................3

RFID-Based EPC Will Fail in Supply Chains Built On Inaccurate Data. .....................................................5

RFID and EPCs—The Basic Technology ....................................................................................................6

How RFID Works As Part of the Supply Chain .........................................................................................8

Implementating RFID and EPC—Considerations ....................................................................................10

How GXS Can Help You Realize Value From RFID ................................................................................13

Glossary ...................................................................................................................................................15

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS: John Radko, Chief Technology Strategist for Global eXchange Services, advises the GXS leadership team on technology and coordinates and encourages technology advancement across the GXS product lines. Mr. Radko is an active member of EPCglobal standards organization and contributes to many publications on the topic of supply chain integration. Alex Schumacher, Director, Retail Industry Marketing for Global eXchange Services, is responsible for retail value chain development through collaborative commerce solutions. Mr. Schumacher has been working in retail supply chain management for 12 years and has contributed to the development of data synchronization solutions in the US and Europe.

Executive Summary A number of mandates recently issued to suppliers by major organizations across several sectors are proof that the real-time extended supply chain is now becoming a reality. Wal-Mart, US Department of Defense, Metro Group, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Carrefour, Albertson’s, and Target Corp are all asking suppliers to use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to track goods as they move through the supply chain. While much attention has been focused on testing the RFID equipment in these environments, RFID tags and readers are hardly a new technology. What is exciting is the ability of RFID to provide accurate data about the current location and movement of products to business managers within minutes rather than hours or days. All this will be possible because RFID tags will store electronic product codes (EPCs), 64- or 96-bit numbers whose format is based on serializing current numbering schemes like the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), governed by the international standards body EAN.UCC. Each RFID tag will contain a unique EPC, allowing the item to which the tag is attached to be tracked separately from all other like items. However, simply tracking the item is only one part of the equation. The real power of RFID will come from the ability to associate EPCs with product data, so that business systems know that, for instance, a case of a particular brand of toothpaste (and not, say, a case of shampoo) from a specific manufacturing batch and sourced from a specific supplier has just entered the warehouse.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: •RFID will fail without data accuracy delivered by Global Data Synchronization. •Any RFID project must include a strategy for sharing data with your partners using existing and emerging technologies. •While the near-term value of RFID is in reduced material handling cost, the long term benefit will be derived from improved inventory visibility.

Additionally, in simple operational terms, RFID will speed the physical movement of goods. RFID tags can be scanned more quickly than conventional barcodes because there is no need to unload each item or box from the crate or pallet in which it has been packed for shipping.

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ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

For suppliers and retailers alike, the benefits of RFID could be significant: • Reduced supply chain labor costs as a result of greater efficiency in handling and tracking items • Reduced inventory holdings (and therefore working capital requirements) as a result of streamlining the supply chain and increasing visibility of products • Improved product availability and higher sales due to more accurate inventory • Easier recall of products in the event of a product defect What is clear is that the capabilities of the RFID tags and readers will not be the stumbling block to successful implementations. RFID is a well-established technology with roots going back more than fifty years. Hardware manufacturers have for many years been working closely with a consortium of universities, including the AutoID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop the technology for use in the supply chain and are now running numerous successful pilots. Major customer mandates will only accelerate investment and development of robust and reliable tag and reader systems. But there are major issues to be tackled in using RFID and EPCs to deliver the real-time extended supply chain. This white paper will look at those issues and consider how suppliers and retailers alike can implement practical solutions to meet their needs for real-time supply chain information.

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

RFID-Based EPC Will Fail in Supply Chains Built on Inaccurate Data Delivering the benefits promised by RFID-based EPCs will only be possible if trading networks also address the issue of inaccurate data that pervades today’s supply chains, especially in the retail sector. There is little point in knowing that a case of goods with a particular EPC is speeding its way through the system if you think it is toothpaste when it is actually shampoo. Since the EPC is a GTIN based number, synchronizing the meaning of the GTIN during the order management process is critical to ensuring accurate fulfillment of that order and downstream supply chain processes based on EPC scanning. Therefore, prior to the implementation of RFID readers and tags, all retailers and their suppliers must adopt the single global data synchronization (GDS) vision being promoted by the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) and EAN.UCC. EAN.UCC, the standards organization for retail, has not only developed a single standard for identifying products, the Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN), but also an infrastructure—the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN)—to allow the retail industry to share data more easily. When fully implemented, GDS will allow detailed data about products from any supplier anywhere in the world to be accessed by any retailer anywhere in the world, through a network of locally held databases of GTINs called datapools. More information on GDS can be found in a companion GXS white paper, Supplier’s Guide To Defining A Data Synchronization Strategy.

GTIN Based Data for Sync

EPC Based Data for Reference

GTIN : 065231 00010 6 Tom’s Soup 20 oz, Tomato Soup Cost: $.50, MSRP $.99, UOM: EA

EPC: 16.3.065231.00010.0000000001 20 oz, Tom’s Soup, Tomato Soup Date of Manufacture: 02152004 Factory GLN: 006523100001, Lot #: 349230Z Line # 100, Expiration Date: 02152006

GTIN : 10 065231 00010 6 Tom’s Soup Case of 24, 20 oz, Tomato Soup Cost: $12.00, MSRP $0, UOM: EA

EPC: 16.3.1065231.00010.0000000001 Case of 24, 20 oz, Tom’s Soup, Tomato Soup Date of Packing: 02152004 Factory GLN: 006523100001, Line #: 8663

GTIN : 20 065231 00010 6 Tom’s Soup Pallet 18 Case of 24, 20 oz, Tomato Soup Cost: $144.00, MSRP $0, UOM: EA

EPC: 16.3.2065231.00010.0000000001 Pallet 18 Case of 24, 20 oz, Tom’s Soup, Tomato Soup Date Built: 02152004 Warehouse GLN: 006523100002, Storage Temp: 10°C

Order Management

Logistics Visibility

GTIN based information is used to synchronize the order management process while the EPC is used to provide inventory visibility to support logistics management.

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ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

In this environment, EPCs will track specific instances of products identified by GTINs. Yet, despite much publicity surrounding GDS many companies and EAN.UCC member organizations are lagging in their implementation of GDS-compliant solutions. Without accurate product data about items provided by GDS, RFID and EPC implementations will fail to improve supply chain management. Moreover, retailers need to be clear that GDS and EPC are complementary to each other, rather than alternatives that deliver the same goal. The aim of GDS is to improve the accuracy of supply-chain data so that the process from sales order to invoice payment becomes less costly and more efficient. EPC, by contrast, is about tracking inventory and improving the efficiency of the physical processes of order fulfillment and logistics. It is the two systems working seamlessly together that will deliver the benefits of accurate inventory visibility allowing the retail industry to implement more sophisticated inventory management strategies such as vendor managed inventory (VMI), collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR), and scan-based trading (SBT).

Smart players in the retail sector will see GDS and RFID-based EPCs as inextricably linked and will implement EPC solutions that: • ensure their business systems take full advantage of the GDSN to source and share product data with trading partners • extend GDS data stores to support EPC attributes and provide access to these systems via EPC based queries; and • leverage existing B2B messaging technologies in order to reduce the cost of implementation. In short, the retail sector must integrate the EPC Network, the Global Data Synchronization Network, and existing EAN.UCC messaging standards into a single infrastructure that recognizes the importance of data accuracy in supporting both process optimization based on automating item and price management, and collaboration between trading partners based on pervasive inventory visibility.

RFID and EPCs—The Basic Technology RFID tags storing EPCs are a way to associate data with a physical product. Anyone handling the physical item can (with the right technology) access the business data about that item—everything from its identity to which invoice it has been charged on. Each RFID tag contains a microchip that stores identification data—the EPC—and a wireless transmitter and antenna that can broadcast that data to readers. Unlike the conventional barcode, readers do not have to be in “line of sight” of the tag.

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

As with the barcode, a set of standards is emerging to govern the EPC data structure stored on RFID tags, so that a tag attached to a pallet by a supplier can be read and understood when that pallet reaches the customer. The format of EPCs is governed by EPCglobal, an RFID standards development joint venture between EAN International and Uniform Code Council. EPCglobal is also developing standards for the radio frequencies at which RFID tags will operate to ensure global interoperability of tags and readers.

STRUCTURE OF EPC: GTIN 14 DIGITS Electronic Product Code

01 . 0000A89 . 00016F . 00169DC0 Header 8 bits

Domain Manager 28 bits

Determines the structure of the following series of numbers

Object Class 24 bits

Identifies the company or entity responsible for maintaining the subsequent numbers

Indicator Digit

Used to identify an object class, which represents a group of products

EAN.UCC Prefix

Product Number

Serial Number 36 bits

Unique object identification

Check Digit

Decoding the number: Header—Used by readers to determine the type of data contained on the chip, eg., 64-bit EPC vs. 96-bit EPC. Domain Manager—EAN.UCC Company Prefix Object Class—Combination of Product Hierarchy Indicator (00+UPC12, or 0+EAN13) and Product Number (balance of GTIN minus check digit) Serial number—Consecutive number for each item produced NOTE: The GTIN check digit is not encoded in an EPC.

RFID tags can be active, passive or semi-passive. Active tags include a battery that powers the antenna to broadcast a signal to be picked up by the reader. Passive tags have no battery but draw power from the reader, which sends out electromagnetic waves that induce a current in the tag’s antenna. Semi-passive tags use a battery to run the chip’s circuitry, but communicate by drawing power from the reader. Active and semi-passive tags can be read up to 100 feet (30 meters) away while passive tags can only be read from within 10 feet (3 meters). Active and semi-passive tags are also much more expensive. This means they are economical for tracking high-value goods that need to be scanned from a distance but are not suitable for tagging very low cost items.

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Chips in RFID tags can be read-write or read-only. Read-write chips allow the user to encode the EPC on the tag—or update it—when the tag is within range of a reader, but are more expensive than read-only tags. The EPC on a read-only tag is either set by the manufacturer or can use a particular form of memory called EEPROM, which only allows the data to be overwritten with specialized hardware. Because of the costs involved, the majority of tags used in the retail supply chain, at least initially, will be passive. These tags cost between ten and fifty cents US. With Wal-Mart demanding suppliers to use field programmable tags (read-write)—allowing suppliers to write tags with EPCs—the more expensive read-write tags are likely to be adopted by most suppliers. In the long-term, suppliers should be most interested in re-usable tags that can support multiple reads and writes for pallet-level tracking, although such tags are still under development and will not be commercially available for some time. Putting RFID tags on pallets and cases is, however, only one step in the process of getting business data to flow alongside the physical supply chain.

How RFID Works As Part of the Supply Chain When an RFID tag is attached to a pallet or case, the manufacturer needs to either program the tag with an EPC containing the relevant code for that product or capture the pre-programmed EPC. In either case, the EPC needs to be associated with the appropriate data describing that product. This product data is stored using Physical Markup Language, a subset of eXtensible Markup Language (XML), devised to allow the attributes of physical items to be described in a standard way which can be interpreted by any PML-compliant application. The PML standard is also managed by EPCglobal, drawing on work undertaken by bodies such as Le Système International d’Unités (SI) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. When an RFID tag is read, the EPC code is sent to an Object Name Service (ONS) on a local network or the Internet, which points to a server where comprehensive data about the product can be found in PML format. That data can be retrieved and passed to a company’s inventory or supply chain applications.

Readers can be arranged and configured to capture RFID data in several ways: • to conduct a scan of an area to identify everything in that area at that time. Such scans could be continuous, scheduled on a regular basis or triggered by an event in another system or by a person

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

• to continuously scan for tags passing through a narrowly defined area (such as the doorway to a loading dock) • handheld scanners could be used to scan for tags on individual items. However readers are configured, they will pick up a constant stream of EPCs. Many of these will be duplicate readings of the same RFID tag. Existing business applications such as ERP, Supply Chain Management and Logistics applications are ill-equipped to deal with these high volumes of repetitive data. The reader therefore needs to pass the information to a middleware application that can manage the flow of data.

SUPPLIER

RETAILER

Using the Global Registry in conjunction with the ONS Directory, a retailer will be able to synchronize product data with their suppliers using the source data pool to facilitate ordering. The EPC Network will be used to request product information from the source data pool via ONS for items that are mis-routed or subsituted during shipping.

EPCglobal has adopted a distributed software architecture called Savant to manage data being generated from reads of RFID tags. Each Savant node will work with the others to perform a variety of functions: • Savants attached to readers will perform data smoothing, ensuring errors in reading tags are corrected before the data is passed on • One Savant node in a local network of readers will co-ordinate readings to eliminate duplicate EPCs • Savants will only forward appropriate data to other Savants, to the ONS or to business applications • Because current database technologies can only handle up to a few hundred transactions a second, Savant nodes will be able to provide temporary data storage until other applications are ready to receive it

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• Savant nodes will also be able to monitor data and use EPC events—such as the movement of the last case of a particular product from a certain area—to trigger tasks such as sending alerts to other systems. Because EPCs identify a particular instance (a pallet, case or individual packet) of a product rather than merely the type of product (GTIN), RFID-based EPCs allow specific items or batches to be tracked through the supply chain. This will greatly simplify the process of recalling a product in the event of a manufacturing fault or safety concern, since the EPCs can be used to determine where the items or batches are in the supply chain (which warehouse or store) and the RFID tags can be scanned to quickly identify the physical product.

Implementing RFID and EPC—Considerations While much discussion of RFID has focused on the technology of the tags, attaching a tag to a pallet or case is just one small step in the process, and the cost of tags, while significant, is about equal to the cost of implementing and integrating the infrastructure to make use of them.

If you are going to introduce RFID, you must tackle a number of practical implementation issues. Not the least of which, is consideration of why you are introducing RFID and EPC and what business goals you want to achieve. Many manufacturers will adopt RFID and EPC as a result of mandates from retailers such as Wal-Mart. However, there are a number of reasons why suppliers may want to invest in these technologies internally even if they are not being pressed to do so by customers. For example, RFID and EPC can: • reduce errors in processes that are labor-intensive and error prone, such as complex picking operations. One UK-based company has been able to increase the number of orders its associate can pick at any one time from one or two to 24, by using RFID tags and EPCs to tell them whether items from a particular storage bin need to be included in any of the orders they are picking • speed handling of goods. UK-based Marks & Spencer has cut the average time to scan pallets of goods from 29 seconds using barcodes to five seconds using RFID • reduce waste and loss in the supply chain, by allowing products susceptible to counterfeit, theft, or spoilage to be tracked more closely. The business goals will determine how you use the EPC information you gather from tags and that, in turn, will drive where you position readers and how often you take readings. If you have extremely high turnover of stock (a good example would be milk processing, where warehouse stock for bottled milk is turned over daily), you would be

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mainly interested in tracking goods on to and off of trucks—but not much concerned about their location within the warehouse—leading you to place readers operating continuously around loading bay entrances. If you have multiple lines of stock turning over at different speeds, you may be more interested in running intermittent reads of the whole warehouse to improve internal inventory management. In addition, several manufacturers are discovering that the position of the tag on a case— especially a passive tag—can affect how easily it can be read when the case is stacked in the center of many others. The optimal position will depend on the contents of the case. It’s also worth remembering that the standards for RFID tags and readers are not settled, as certain radio frequencies are unavailable in some countries and tags manufactured by different suppliers send data in different ways. Retailers will almost certainly require multi-protocol readers. Suppliers may be able to use tags and readers from a single vendor, but may experience difficulties if they want to extend RFID to in-bound processing of raw materials. Beyond the tag and reader technology, you need to implement software solutions to handle EPC data. At the low-end of the market, you are likely to be able to buy plug-in modules to packages that provide the basic functions for Savant nodes. Providers of high-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions are already starting to launch RFID-enabled offerings for warehouse and logistics divisions. Installing the software is only the start, however. Savant nodes will need to be configured to work with readers and integrated with business applications at the process level as well as the technical level. For instance, they must also be set up to trigger appropriate actions when specific events occur. Determining how you want to adapt your business processes to achieve the best ROI from RFID will be a critical first step in any RFID implementation. In practical terms, EPCglobal also believes that each company may need to maintain its own local ONS server to allow it to retrieve data quickly, since the volume of requests to the ONS will be much higher than requests to comparable services such as the Internet’s Web’s Domain Name Service. Clearly, the ONS needs to be resilient, with built-in redundancies, to allow data to be retrieved even if the ONS server usually used by a particular Savant node crashes.

FIVE STEPS TO GETTING STARTED 1. Build Your Team: Identify RFID project goals and identify executive sponsorship and project owner 2. Get In Sync: Complete necessary steps to clean-up internal data and synchronize it with your partners 3. Tag the Merchandise: Determine in what phase of manufacturing/distribution you need to apply the RFID tag and choose the appropriate solution to meet your needs 4. Manage the Data: Identify what instance level product data is required by you and your partners and develop a means to capture it 5. Communicate with Your Partners: Identify processes where you can use the additional inventory visibility to better manage your business and ensure that your partners can provide access to that data

The need to maintain multiple copies of ONS data, whether locally or globally also raises the issue of data synchronization and how RFID will be linked to existing programs to

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ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

share data more effectively between suppliers and customers. As noted earlier, RFID efforts must mesh in particular with the GDS program currently being driven forward by EAN.UCC. Companies must also consider how they will maintain the product data held on EPCISs (and again, how this will link to other data synchronization activities). EPCglobal suggests manufacturers maintain these files. However, running a Web server (which again must offer resiliency to allow business processes to be maintained in the event that the primary EPCIS is offline) is not an easy task and suppliers are likely to look at managed and hosted services for this aspect of the process. Companies will need to think clearly about where to store the data they need to support RFID-based processes and how to effectively maintain, share and access it. Some data may be best held in existing enterprise systems. Other data may demand the installation of new solutions, such as product catalogues, in-house or organizations may prefer to work with a hosted service provider especially where the prime objective of storing the data is to allow others to access it. The industry must also tackle consumer fears about privacy. Trials of item level tagging by Benetton and by Tesco and Gillette have been suspended following pressure from consumer privacy groups over how EPC data on individual items might be used. Privacy concerns are of much less concern when implementing RFID tagging at the pallet or case level, since the tags will only be used and read within the factory or customer warehouse, or in transit. At the consumer level, Marks & Spencer, Metro and Wal-Mart are now all demonstrating best practices by developing privacy policies that communicate to users exactly how data from RFID tags will be used or which commit to removing or de-activating tags before the item leaves the store. Finally, companies must be aware that introducing RFID poses a significant project management challenge, because it requires companies to work with partners from the outset. Most technologies can be introduced internally in a relatively controlled environment, but RFID based EPC, by its nature, demands collaboration with trading partners. Companies should not underestimate the project management effort and change management challenges involved and should budget resources appropriately for these activities.

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How GXS Can Help You Realize Value From RFID At GXS, we understand the importance you place on sharing data with your supply chain partners and EPC is no different. We have extensive experience in implementing and operating integration solutions to enable our clients to communicate more effectively with their trading partners while lowering costs. We can support and integrate with a wide range of protocols, including AS2, which offers EDI capabilities over public networks such as the Internet, and XML. Both can be used to “push” data to trading partners or data pools. GXS is also developing web services capabilities that are based on the kind of “pull” solutions that will be needed to connect to ONS and other EPCISs.

In addition, with its specific solutions, GXS will enable organizations to tackle the four data challenges associated with EPC: Maintaining accurate static data such as GTINS through GDS • For suppliers, GXS can offer three levels of solutions to meet the needs of any size of business: - GXS Global Product Catalogue—a hosted data pool solution to manage the process of synchronizing data with all of your trading partners. - GXS Quick Connect—meets the needs of medium-sized enterprises by integrating with existing applications, such as an ERP, to extract the necessary data, cleanse and normalize it into the appropriate formats and then upload it to a datapool - GXS Product Information Manager—a full catalog management solution that can aggregate data from multiple internal sources, create a data repository that can be managed centrally and used to deliver data for a number of uses, including to datapools.

“ If CPG companies ever want to truly shift gears from push to pull, data synchronization is crucial. It will be the foundation of a two-way flow of product, promotion, and sales data and the enabler for true collaboration and emerging technologies like RFID. The end result will be a Consumer-Connected Supply Network within which manufacturers and customers will be able to forecast promotion lift, predict consumer demand, and identify the profitability of products and channels more accurately.” —Kara Romanow, AMR Research Data Synchronization Has Simply Become a Cost of Doing Business, April 2003

• For retailers, GXS can provide a retailer-specific version of its Product Information Manager solution that allows them to hold very large catalogs of data sourced through their datapool from multiple suppliers. This solution provides retailers with a suite of tools to allow them to integrate and manage that data to meet their internal item management process requirements. • For EAN.UCC member organizations looking to develop country data pools, GXS can offer its extensive experience running existing data normalization and synchronization services. We already deliver these as managed services to EAN member organizations in countries such as Canada (ECCC) and Australia (EANnet). Maintaining accurate instance-specific data such as manufacturing batch number, manufacturing location, and expiration date. The capabilities of our Product Information

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Management solutions are being extended to manage the attributes that make items unique. Not only does this solution provide management of the data, it can also make it available to other processes like product recall. Capturing and maintaining historical item movement data based on reads of RFID tags as products move through the supply chain. GXS can offer a logistics visibility solution that integrates EPC scan data to provide insight to shipment status and facilitate supply chain event management. Providing access to associated data to give process context to RFID scan information such as purchase orders, shipping documents, invoices, and other supply chain documents. GXS connection and monitoring solutions will provide the capability to associate RFID scan information with other processes in the supply chain. • GXS’s Advanced Ship Notice barcode printing solutions can be used to label cases or pallets with RFID tags • GXS’s range of EDI and AS/2-based messaging services will allow EPC data to be shared with trading partners, leveraging widely adopted messaging processes with the network of ONS and EPCISs to provide a single Business to Business integration architecture If you want a hosted service, GXS offers a number of solutions. If you want to run your own RFID solution, we can provide consulting, implementation services and a variety of software components and connectivity services to allow you to build a system that meets your needs.

Global eXchange Services has over thirty-five years experience serving the needs of the retail industry with a full suite of global retail solutions. To learn more about how our solutions can help your business meet the challenge of RFID, please contact us at www.gxs.com or call us at 800-560-4347 or outside the U.S. at 1+301-340-5000

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CODE: RFID DRIVES THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN ADAPTIVE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTION

Glossary AS2—a standard that allows EDI data to be sent over the Internet using the http protocol. Datapool—a GDSN-compliant mechanism for trading partners to share and synchronize data. As well as storing product data, a datapool provides the necessary functions and workflow to communicate with the GLOBALregistry and with other datapools. EAN.UCC—the global bodies regulating data standards for product description in retail. EPC—Electronic Product Codes: a 64- or 96-bit number whose format is governed by EPCglobal, a subsidiary of the EAN.UCC international standards body. Each RFID tag will contain a unique EPC. EPCglobal, a subsidiary of the EAN.UCC international standards body that governs the format of EPCs. EPC Information Service (EPCIS)—standardized web services interface to data stores that provide information related to RFID tag reads GDD—Global Data Dictionary: an EAN.UCC standard that allows all the potential attributes of an item to be defined. These attributes may include size, brand information, logistical information, and so on. GDS—Global Data Synchronization. GDSN—Global Data Synchronization Network: provides a framework that allows all datapools to interoperate and all trading partners to share data seamlessly. GCI—Global Commerce Initiative: a global industry user group which works to identify issues which are hindering the performance of supply chains and suggest potential global solutions for data, messages, processes, and associated requirements. These are offered to standards body such as EAN.UCC for adoption. GLN—Global Location Number: a unique way for companies to identify themselves and even specific locations within their sites, down to the warehouse or delivery dock level.

GLOBALregistry—provides an index for companies looking for product data held in local datapools, while ensuring datapools are fully complaint with EAN.UCC standards and that each product has a unique Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN). GPC—Global Product Classification: a standard way of categorizing products that provides a means of linking different company classification systems and offers a common language for collaborative business processes. GSMP—Global Standards Management Process: the governing body for the development of global data synchronization standards within the EAN.UCC framework. Open to all industry participants and solution providers, the GSMP provides the process for developing business requirements and global standards for tecnical implementations. GTIN—Global Trade Item Number: a unique identifier for each product. ONS—Object Name Service, a directory, similar to the Domain Name Service, which allows applications to get the web address where comprehensive data about a product can be found in PML format. PML—Physical Markup Language: a subset of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) devised to allow the attributes of physical items to be described in a standard way that can be interpreted by any PML-compliant application. RFID—Radio Frequency Identification: a technology that allows data held on a microchip to be broadcast using a wireless transmitter. Data from the RFID chip can be read even when the chip is not in line of sight. Savant—a software architecture developed by EPCglobal to manage the high volumes of data being generated from reads of RFID tags that deals with read errors, multiple reads of the same tags and so on before data is passed to business systems.

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About Global eXchange Services Global eXchange Services, Inc. operates one of the largest B2B e-commerce networks in the world, managing 1 billion transactions annually for more than 100,000 trading partners. With over 35 years experience, Global eXchange Services provides supply chain services and software to 60 percent of the FORTUNE 500. Global eXchange Services is headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD and is a direct subsidiary and indirect subsidiary of GXS Corporation and GXS Holdings, Inc. respectively.