Global eXchange Services and the International Foundation for Automatic Identification to develop and manage Russia's retail-data pool, helping to expedite trading with partners worldwide.

Laurie Sullivan, Contributor

August 30, 2004

2 Min Read

Global eXchange Services on Monday disclosed a joint initiative with the International Foundation for Automatic Identification to develop and manage Russia's retail-data pool, RusDP1, a multiindustry electronic product catalog and data-synchronization service. Part of an agreement between GXS and the foundation will let Russian retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers trade with partners worldwide.

RusDP1 will become the first data pool in the Russian Federation to comply with global supply-chain standards, created by a broad EAN initiative involving more than 1 million member companies in 133 countries. GXS will enable the foundation to participate in the Global Data Synchronization initiative by leveraging the Global Data Synchronization Network, the global registry for which future supply chain technologies will be built. On Aug. 1, standards groups EAN International, which has its roots in Europe, and the U.S.-based Uniform Code Council launched the Global Data Synchronization Network global registry GS1.

On Tuesday, GXS will announce that it will develop Asia-Pacific's first global data-synchronization compliant country data pool for EAN Taiwan, the Taiwanese EAN member organization of EAN International. The Taiwan data pool will offer global interoperability within the Global Data Synchronization Network and GS1.

The EAN Taiwan data pool is available to its 13,500 Taiwanese members, and will become the first in Asia-Pacific to comply with global supply-chain standards created by the EAN.UCC initiative, which claims more than 1 million member companies in 133 countries.

To ensure secure access to all confidential data being stored and managed on the EAN Taiwan data pool, GXS is working with EAN Taiwan to incorporate the GSIKey secure system as the front-end security authentication to the EAN Taiwan data pool. The GSIKey provides secure access for each user by authenticating and verifying each member user's identity before allowing access to the data pool services. This will be the first GSIKey implementation for a GDS data pool.

Suppliers and retailers this year stepped up efforts to synchronize product data between industries. It has become a prerequisite for those retailers initiating radio-frequency identification projects to tag cases and pallets moving through the supply chain into distribution centers and stores.

Metro AG, Tesco, and Wal-Mart Stores have requested makers of consumer goods to transmit product data electronically through to data pools, also known as repositories, to ensure accurately described and consistent product information is synchronized between trading partners.

In the retail industry, data inaccuracies contribute to increased expenses due to errors in purchase orders, invoices and logistics systems, and shipment returns. Country data pools serve as a single source for the secure exchange of accurate and updated product information, allowing all supply-chain partners to share and synchronize common standardized data. As a result, manufacturers are able to improve catalog maintenance, order management, and fulfillment, while reducing the time it takes for goods to get to market.

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