Top Editors ... The Global Traceability Standard

Title: The Global Traceability Standard
Date: 22/05/2006
Autor: By Miodrag Mitic, General Manager, GS1 Solutions

Both the European Union and the USA have recently passed regulations requiring specific information to be collected to trace food products ‘one step up and one step back’ within a supply chain. These regulations do not, however, specify how this should be done, leaving it to industry to find the most efficient and effective methods for their situations. In a bid to support industry and facilitate the implementation of effective traceability throughout the supply chain, GS1* has worked with stakeholders to produce a global business agreement on the generic requirements of a traceability system and on a common language for describing the process. The new Global Traceability Standard takes into account the differences imposed by diverse legislative and business requirements, and also the divergence in enabling technologies. It draws on the GS1 System, which has the ability to provide globally unique identification of trade items, assets, logistic units, parties, and locations, for example, and is endorsed by CIES – The Food Business Forum as well
as ECR Europe.

How it works

The GS1 Traceability Standard is based on existing business practices, and there is, therefore, no need to purchase, create or integrate new systems. It is also based on a common language: the GS1 System of identification and bar coding, as well as GS1 EANCOM and GS1 XML messaging.

As GS1 Standards are used in over 150 countries around the world by the majority of supply chain partners (there are over 1 million GS1 user companies), the Standard is assured a broad-based platform. It takes a global approach, addressing the supply chain as a whole rather than any particular individual partner. By covering the fundamentals of traceability, such as identification, data capture and management, links management, and communication, the Standard is designed to be completely thorough in its approach.

It focuses on the interfaces of the physical flow of materials and products, establishing an open, global relationship between independent partners. GS1 recognizes that circumstances vary within and between sectors, and has thus created the Standard to provide for tailored applications, allowing each company to design its own traceability system in terms of width, depth and precision in accordance with its own commercial objectives.

Minimum Requirements

The Standard defines the minimum requirements and business rules to be followed when designing and implementing a traceability system. It clusters these requirements within physical and information subprocesses, for example:

● The Plan and Organise subprocess determines how to assign, collect, share and keep traceability data. Furthermore, it determines how to manage links between inputs, internal processes, and outputs.

● The Align Master Data subprocess determines how to assign identifications to the parties and physical locations, trade items and, if appropriate, to assets. It also determines how to exchange Master Data with trading partners.

● The Record Traceability Data subprocess determines how to assign, apply and capture traceability identification and how to collect, share and store traceability data during the physical flow.

● The Request Trace sub-process determines how to initiate and respond to a traceability request.

● The Use Information sub-process enables the use of the previous processes to take appropriate action as stipulated by legal and business requirements.

The GS1 Traceability Standard is not designed as a replacement for safety programmes such as the CIES Global Food Safety Initiative or quality programmes such or Eurepgap. However, it complements them when a problem arises.
Likewise, it is not a standard for internal traceability, although it does show the inputs and outputs that must be linked by an internal traceability system. GS1 has already set up a GS1 Traceability Council as a permanent platform upon which to structure and develop all GS1’s traceability activities in the future.

GS1 Traceability Standard 100

GS1 is a global not-for-profit, organisation dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards, technologies and solutions to improve efficiency and visibility in supply and demand chains. Formed as a result of the merger of EAN International and the Uniform Code Council, GS1 offers a diversified portfolio of products, solutions and services, including the GS1 Systems of standards. Miodrag Mitic is the coauthor and editor of GS1 Traceability Guidelines for numerous supply chains.