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GS1 Standards Address Global Supply Chain Visibility, Efficiency

In an exclusive interview, Greg Bylo, Vice President of Healthcare, GS1 US, talks global supply chain standards, regulatory compliance and leveraging inventory technology.

Healthcare Packaging: GS1 US serves U.S. businesses, but are there also related GS1 organizations that serve other areas globally?

Greg Bylo: Yes, there are 111 other member organizations of GS1 around the world. GS1 US is the U.S.-based office, but there are others like GS1 UK, GS1 France, GS1 Tanzania, for example. Each organization is independent of the other but works to implement the same global GS1 Standards wherever they are.

Healthcare Packaging: Describe GS1 US, its standards and how they apply in the U.S. and globally?

Bylo: GS1 Standards are the most widely used supply chain standards in the world. The U.P.C. barcode—just one example of a GS1 Standard—is scanned more than five billion times a day globally. Our information standards provide for accurate identification and communication of information regarding products, assets, services and locations globally in order to drive supply chain visibility and efficiency. They help companies authenticate products, and allow them to trace products throughout each stop in the supply chain all over the world.

To provide an example of a standard in action, companies apply a barcode that contains a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), which uniquely identifies that product. Once products have been identified with GTINs and a corresponding barcode for global uniqueness, electronic data exchange can be achieved. With the exchange of standardized product information, business processes are more automated, eliminating manual entry to reduce errors and save time. Business transactions become seamless, especially with the ability to link internal systems to an external system all trading partners can utilize. Standards provide this critical bridge and enable enhanced efficiency and collaboration.

You can imagine how powerful standards can be when recalled items need to be isolated and pulled from shelves, especially when consumer and patient safety is at risk. GS1 has been selected as one of the official issuing agencies supporting the FDA UDI [Unique Device Identification, for identification of medical devices through distribution and use] rule. Utilizing the UDI system of standards, in this case, allows a company to meet the UDI rule. GS1 US is also working on solutions to support the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) for the pharmaceutical industry.

Healthcare Packaging: Do companies pay a fee to belong to GS1 US? What are the benefits for these companies?

Bylo: Yes, GS1 US is a membership-based organization. The membership fees vary and depend on how many barcodes a company anticipates it will need. A company licenses a GS1 Company Prefix, which is the first few numbers contained in Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), which are the numbers that appear in barcodes. Once a company has a Company Prefix, they can create their own GTINs according to how many products and product variations they have. A breakdown of fees by capacity is available on our website.

A company can also join a GS1 US initiative, which also provides vital education and support to connect communities on supply chain and data issues as a whole. GS1 Healthcare US Initiative is particularly for healthcare that is driving forward open, global standards to help companies improve the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of the supply chain and care delivery. Workgroups are created to focus on current priorities of the industry.

Healthcare Packaging: Describe the importance of standards to global businesses?

Bylo: Companies started the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) effort many years ago and began to realize the importance of maintaining master data so that their global systems would run effectively. As these efforts stabilized they started to see how they could connect these systems with their trading partners and began to realize that the master data definitions they selected needed to be aligned with their trading partners in order to get the most benefit from their investment. GS1 standards are the standard definition to many ERP attributes such as how a product is described, the GTIN, following a standard process to establish the transferable product hierarchy approach. Using the Global Location Number (GLN) to identify trading partners ensures a consistent global approach. This is the power of the GS1 standards. They assist in realizing the ROI for an ERP system.

This standardization of master data becomes the fuel for a company’s supply chain. They reduce complexity between and within organizations. They make it easier for trading partners to identify items, share information about a product, order and receive parts or ingredients from suppliers, or ship goods to customers. This leads to improved patient safety and reduced medication errors by facilitating bedside verification and point-of-care scanning. They enable product traceability and authentication. By eliminating multiple coding systems, they make trading more efficient and responsive to customers.

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LAST CHANCE TO SAVE! New Tech for Life Sciences at PACK EXPO Southeast