Before we get into the way in which Datalinx have incorporated GS1 into our warehouse management applications, it is worth taking a moment to look at what GS1 is about and what it means to the businesses in the supply chain.
Embracing the power and capabilities of the GS1 Standard
GS1 is both an organisation and today a synonym for a barcode standard. GS1 as an organisation has, in the UK a community of over 28,000 members and is one of 111 independent, not-for-profit GS1 organisations operating across 150 countries.
GS1 help everyone involved in making, moving and trading goods to automate and standardise their supply chain processes using the common language of GS1 Global Standards and GS1 are now bringing these same standards to the healthcare supply chain....
If you are a business supplying into the major supermarkets or your product carries a GTIN (EAN) number, then you will have, knowingly or unknowingly
been using some form of GS1 standard. Whilst suppliers who have to ship product in to the major supply chains, such as the likes of Sainsbury, Tesco and B&Q have seen the effects of the GS1-128 standard, the second level or smaller supply chain can still in Datalinx's opinion, extract significant benefit from the work that has been carried out by these major retailers.
The mechanics of GS1-128 from a product and warehousing point of view, gives the ability to place relevant data fields into a single barcode (either linear or 2D). An example of this may be the product code, the batch code and the sell by date. There are a few hundred elements of data that can be built into a given GS1-128 barcode and these are continually being added to and updated as the needs of the supply chain develops.
The beauty of this is that if systems are GS1 enabled, the data within the barcode can be extracted without any need to share proprietary set ups. Furthermore, in certain market sectors, if you are not able to conform to the GS1 standard, then you lock yourself out of the ability to trade in that market.
What does a GS1 barcode look like ?
Looking at the Datalinx Warehouse Manager 200 product we have embedded the GS1 functionality deep into the product but give flexibility to the user to be able to match the use of the standard to their business. For each of the transactions within the warehouse, it is possible to enable the use of GS1 codes.
Within the product we also have a configuration table that allows a mapping of the AI data fields to the relevant transaction in Sage 200 and Warehouse Manager 200. For example, if we look at a product code, this can be depicted in a number of different ways depending on the supplier and their use of the GS1 standard.
A product code can be characterized by a number of AI data fields and whilst the list below is not exhaustive, all of these meet the GS1 standard and are allowable. However they need to be interpreted as the Sage product code when scanned and handled within the warehouse.
01 – Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)
240 – Additional Product Identification Assigned by the Manufacture
241 – Customer Part Number
Utilising the controls with the Datalinx application, you can set these codes up as follows:
The result of this integration means that the Sage 200 user can now utilise the standards set up by GS1 and supply into markets which make the GS1 standard compliance a pre-requisite.