Pilot aims to demonstrate visibility of goods between Japan and the Netherlands

London, 13 November 2008 – EPCglobal Inc, a subsidiary of GS1, the global not-for-profit standards organisation, today announced plans for the third phase of its Transportation and Logistics Services (TLS) Industry Action Group RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Pilot Program. The pilot, scheduled to start in December 2008, will demonstrate how organisations across a global supply chain can exchange real time event data and track shipments from a third party logistics provider in Japan to a distribution warehouse in the Netherlands. Customs authorities and supply chain partners will have real-time access to information about products and shipments as they travel along the supply chain. 

The pilot will also test the use of EPCIS (EPC Information Services), a GS1 EPCglobal standard, to track the progress of products in cartons, pallets and containers moving along the supply chain from Tokyo to Amsterdam.  The EPCIS standard allows for supply chain data such as ‘what, when, where and why’ to be captured, stored and exchanged during any event in the supply chain allowing trading partners to exchange real-time progress information on their products.  Several shipments of goods involving 50 containers will be transported from Tokyo to Amsterdam within a month.

As part of the pilot, the GS1 Global Shipment Identification Number (GSIN) will be used to identify cross border shipments and will serve as the World Customs Organisation’s Unique Consignment Reference (UCR).  The UCR is a reference number created by the WCO to facilitate international trade to provide customs with a means for effective risk assessment and audit-based controls.  The GS1 GSIN was specifically created for the identification of shipments in international trade and customs. 
The use of active EPC/RFID (Extended Conveyance Asset Tag) and e-seal tags on sea containers as well as the application of active tags at pallet level will also be tested within the framework of the pilot. These tests will help drive the development of standards for conveyance asset tags and e-seals.  This will enable the tracking of the asset throughout its lifetime and address the issue of container security.

“Through the use of GS1 EPCglobal standards, including UHF Class 1 Generation 2, Reader Protocol, Application Level Events (ALE) for Filtering and Collection and EPC Information Services (EPCIS), authorised transport and logistics companies, customs authorities and other interested parties will be able to track events throughout the supply chain,” said Chris Adcock, President of EPCglobal Inc.

The third phase of the transport and logistics pilot builds on the learnings of the successful completion of the first and second phases. The first phase validated the use of both passive and active UHF EPC tags for sea-shipment of cartons and containers between Hong Kong and Japan and the second phase demonstrated the impact of GS1 EPCglobal Standards on providing visibility of goods on a global level between source factories in China and distribution centres in the US, flowing through the ports of Shanghai and Los Angeles.

“The key benefit of the Transportation and Logistics Pilot Program is that it fosters the global standards for the transport and logistics sector. Strong leadership is important but it is much better if companies, governments and organisations can quickly make a fair and collective decision based on real practice,” said Naotaka Ishizawa, Project Manager, Technical Strategy Group of MTI/NYK Line. 

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The partners participating in the Transportation and Logistics 3 Pilot Program will include major logistics, shipping, hardware and software providers such as Allumis, Canon, Confidex, Marubeni/Mighty Card, Mitsubishi Electric in collaboration with Alien Technology and IBM Japan, Motorola EMb, NEC, Nippon Express, NTT, NYK Logistics, NXP, Oracle, SATO (UPM Raflatac), Secura Shield, Toppan Forms, Toppan Printing, Vue Technology. Additionally, active participants supporting the Transportation and Logistics 3 Pilot Program will be the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, Nomura Research Institute, Monohakobi Technology Institute, the port authorities of Amsterdam and Tokyo as well as the GS1 Member Organizations from Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. The customs of Japan and the Netherlands are official observers of the Pilot Program.

About GS1 EPCglobal Standards:

GS1 EPCglobal standards are a set of integrated industry-driven standards which have been developed to meet user’s requirements enabling the identification of objects, data capture and sharing of information among partners throughout the supply chain. These standards are developed within the framework of EPCglobal Inc.

About EPCIS (EPC Information Services):

EPCIS is a standard used to track the progress of objects as they move through the supply chain. The data shared at each read point in the supply chain provides WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY of each read. EPCIS provides the Information Services necessary for the storage, communication and dissemination of EPC data. It provides standards event capture and query interfaces for obtaining and sharing data about unique objects in the supply chain within and across organisations.

About EPCglobal Inc:
EPCglobal Inc is a subsidiary of the global not-for-profit standards organization GS1, and supports the global adoption of the Electronic Product Code as industry-driven standards to enable accurate, immediate and cost-effective visibility of information throughout the supply chain.
For more information about EPCglobal Inc, visit:  www.epcglobalinc.org
                                                                                                           
About GS1:
GS1 is a neutral, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility in supply chains. GS1 is driven by more than a million companies, who execute more than five billion transactions a day with the GS1 System of Standards. This makes it the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.
For more information about GS1, visit: www.gs1.org

About Extended Conveyance Asset Tag (XCAT):

The Transportation Working Group in the TLS IAG has focused on a technology standard for a single conveyance tag. Through the work of the group, a defined set of conveyance types was created, transportation specific use case scenarios were built, functional requirements were gathered, and a new tag name was produced: The Conveyance Asset Tag (CAT).

As the tag functionality flushed out, it quickly became apparent that one tag would not meet all use case scenarios. At the basic level, the CAT tag is a passive tag and the XCAT an active tag.  One of the most significant reasons for this separation was the concept of permanent attachment to the conveyance vs. removable from the conveyance.  It was determined that for reasons of maintenance, a permanently associated tag must last the life of the asset (conveyance) and it was determined that active tags, with batteries, would not meet that requirement. 

It was also determined that functionality requirements of an active tag were incredibly diverse which moved the group in the direction of defining optional and mandatory requirements.  It is now implicit in the base-line XCAT that it be extensible to incorporate the optional functionality based on user requirements.

About Passive E-Seal Tags:

E-seals combine C-TPAT, ISO 17712 mechanical bolt seals with UHF Gen 2 RFID tags that are read at points along the supply chain. If the e-seal is tampered with when doors of e-sealed freight containers are forcibly or improperly opened the RFID tag can no longer be read.

About GS1 GSIN:
The Global Shipment Identification Number (GS1 GSIN) enables the identification of grouped transport units travelling under one commercial order from origin to destination and perfectly suits to the needs of Customs Organizations which day after day process thousands of national and international transactions, most composed of multiple transport units containing a number of containers, pallets, and more, all travelling under one single purchase order. 

About UCR:

The Unique Consignment Reference (UCR) was officialised by the World Customs Organization In 2004 in order to identify cross-border shipments. The goal of the UCR is to facilitate international trade and to provide Customs with a means for effective risk assessment. The UCR provides exporters, carriers, customs agencies, and importers with better predictability of information, enhanced security, reduced compliance costs and overall improved traceability in international supply chains.