In a country as large and diverse as India, the sheer quantity of product data can be daunting for retailers and marketplaces to consider—especially because they must frequently ask themselves whether their data is incomplete, out of date or just plain wrong.

The powerful combination of DataKart and Verified by GS1 proved that trust and efficiency start with a valid ID.

Another major trend is a focus on the cargo owner. In recent years, shippers have become a top priority for carriers. In fact, some carriers are now directly partnering with large shippers like Maersk and Alibaba.

To effectively and efficiently operate in this complex, customer-centric supply chain, all stakeholders require visibility of the vessels and ports they visit. Stakeholders need to share up-to-date, reliable information about each vessel’s location, its speed and the shipments it carries—as well as data on the terminals, berths and waterways that the vessel visits to ensure its safety and optimal utilisation.

Timely information is also critical when it comes to efficiently connecting maritime vessels with other modes of transport such as road, rail or inland waterways.

To deliver visibility across the maritime supply chain, global data standards are clearly needed.

Headquartered in Japan, the group’s 3100 employees strive to not only respond to consumer demands for tasty and safe food, but also to anticipate them. Kibun recorded sales of ¥101,000 million last year.

To transport ingredients and products across their supply and distribution chain, the company uses wheeled metal cage trolleys that travel from location to location. But these trolleys were not being capitalised as a company asset, and Kibun teams noticed that too many of these cage trolleys were being lost. Worse, the missing trolleys were generating both costs and delays. When workers didn’t have enough trolleys, new ones had to be purchased; and in some locations insufficient trolleys were causing delays in shipping. This is a problem in any business, but in fresh food, shipping delays are particularly problematic.

Finland’s unique geography, its extremely northern location and its long, dark, cold winters can make it difficult to have efficient logistics that enable Finnish companies to successfully compete in global markets.

VR Transpoint, Finland’s leading transport and logistic service company, has long been meeting that challenge. It operates in several European countries including Russia, and offers rail, groupage, bulk goods and international transport and logistics services.

A substantial portion of VR Transpoint’s rail activity is devoted to shunting, the task of moving wagons from place to place in the yard as they are loaded and unloaded with goods. Until recently, the work was manual: yard workers with pens, paper and walkie-talkies walked through loading and unloading stations, radioing information about the contents and condition of each wagon they verified. An office worker on the other end of the radio would manually enter the data into an ERP system.

It was a time-consuming, inefficient and error-prone process.

VR Transpoint wanted to improve overall wagon shunting efficiency, optimise wagon maintenance and boost customer service by offering real-time wagon traceability information.

Woolworths and selected suppliers are using 2D barcodes with GS1 standards to achieve substantial results, including enhancing food safety and reducing food waste by up to 40%.

Facing shoppers with new expectations and suppliers with new challenges, Woolworths Australia knew they needed a way to make available more data—and more granular data—about the products they sold, without causing confusion or wasting precious label space.

By putting product identification and product information into one on-pack symbol, 2D barcodes have unlocked a new dimension of capabilities for Woolworths and enabled a variety of efficiencies for the retailer and for their suppliers.

With 2D barcodes now in place for many items at Woolworths stores across Australia, the retailer can manage store inventory at a more granular level, alert cashiers that a scanned product is past its expiry date—and in the future—connect a consumer to the web to provide traceability information about a product's origin and more.

In order to support suppliers, GS1 has asked several parties (for the moment XXtract and Brandbank) to set up a data capture service that includes the required product information and eventually enters the data in the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN).

Results

• Data quality has improved significantly since the launch of the program.
• Usage of GDSN improved as well as a priority within supplier organisations.
• The program is evolving based on learnings in an ongoing effort to provide the best data possible to retailers and ultimately consumers.

Situation

Historically in the Netherlands, only logistical data was exchanged via the GDSN. The focus has been on quantity, but over time it became evident that the quality of product data is paramount to gain and retain user trust. This lack of user trust resulted in less than optimal usage, diminishing relevance, and ultimately decreased value to member companies.

In 2014, the use of GDSN was extended with consumer-facing product information in order to meet new regulation demands for specific label information (EU 1169) to be accessible online prior to purchase. As such, the level of quality on product data became even more important.

In order to meet this demand, companies needed a system to support the new data requirements and guidance on industry best practices for provided trusted product information in a consumer-friendly way.

Approach

To meet this need, GS1 initiated a data quality program endorsed by retailers to improve the quality of both business to business (B2B) and consumer-facing data. Product information is continuously checked via a service, along with periodic physical sample checks. Results are reported back to the supplier and compliance with GS1 standards is encouraged by GS1 and member retailers.

GS1’s certified data capturing services are offering this product data quality checking to suppliers along with support to become GDSN compliant. The result is better quality data that retailers can leverage across all channels and consumers can trust.