GS1 standards for barcodes and EDI

GS1 global standards are the most widely used supply chain standards in the world. Over 2 million organisations across the globe use GS1 Standards today, to identify, capture and share information about their products, services, locations and assets. GS1 is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains globally. GS1 numbers and barcodes enable organisations of any size to order, track, trace, deliver and pay for goods across the supply chain, anywhere in the world. GS1 is recognised by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), the European Standardisation Committee (CEN) and the American National Standards Institute. Today, over two million member companies in 145 countries use GS1 standards as part of their daily business communications, representing some five billion scanning transactions a day.

In Ireland

Hardware Association Ireland have been board members of GS1 Ireland for over a decade. GS1 Ireland locally administers the global multi-industry system of identification and communication for products, services, assets and locations - the GS1 System. We also offer a wide range of services to help businesses use these standards and technologies, including technical support, implementation advice, consulting and training through our Professional Services division. Our fundamental role is to allocate GS1 numbers and maintain and promote the use of internationally recognised supply chain standards. This, in turn, allows Irish companies to adopt world's best practice supply chain management techniques. The GS1 Standards for identification, data capture and data sharing enable organisations to identify their products with Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), to encode those GTINs in barcode format and to capture data through bar code scanning. The most frequently used retail barcode in Ireland is the EAN 13.

GS1 Ireland is the only organisation in Ireland officially affiliated to the global organisation GS1 for the licencing of GS1 Identification Keys and dissemination of GS1 Standards. GS1 Ireland provides member users with registration in the global GS1 database GEPIR which is utilised by retailers and trading partners to validate the GS1 Global Company Prefixes (GCPs) used by their suppliers.