News

New guidelines released to help apparel industry transform supply chain

June 11, 2012

Major American retailers, brands and technology providers have agreed on a set of guidelines for assigning serialized identification numbers to individual items, making it possible to trace individual products as they move through the global apparel supply chain.

The information standards organization GS1 US released the guidelines at its annual GS1 Connect Conference, according to a company press release. The new technical guidelines, EPC-enabled RFID Serialization Management for SGTIN-96, are now available at no cost through the GS1 US website. They provide best practices as well as various methodologies for assigning globally unique identification to individual trade items, using a Global Trade Item Number plus a unique serial number. This combination is known as a Serialized Global Trade Item Number, Doug Harvel, IT project leader at Jockey International, said in a company press release.

The goal of GS1 US was to offer consistent and practical guidance to any business embarking on EPC-enabled RFID technology at the item level, said Gena Morgan of GS1 US, who chaired the cross-industry user group that authored the guidelines.

Assigning a SGTIN to individual items means that two otherwise identical units of the same product are uniquely identifiable, making it possible to fully use the power of RFID for simultaneous inventory counts and ensure that the right product is in the right place, at the right time, according to the release.

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