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GS1 Canada
ECCnet Registry, Canada's National Product Registry
Small, Medium-Sized and Large Companies Alike Can Exchange Complete Product Data in One Location
Background
GS1 Canada, formerly the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada, is a not-for-profit, industry-led association that develops, promotes and maintains global standards for the identification of goods, services, locations and related e-commerce communication.
As a member organization of GS1, the largest e-commerce standards organization in the world, GS1 Canada represents the interests of Canada in the continuing development of the global language of business.
Challenge
Manufacturers regularly modify, improve and repackage the products they produce and they require resources to communicate the updated product specifications to the thousands of retailers and distributors with which they trade.
In the past, this process was handled manually and often took weeks to accomplish. It was also error prone, and information could be out of date. Product and order changes tended to be communicated by fax or other paper-based means and then re-keyed into in-house systems by the retailer.
For example, Longo Brothers Fruit Markets in Ontario relied on suppliers to fax product changes to them. Product managers completed an item-management sheet for each change and sent it to the procurement group where the information was entered into in-house systems. Three conversion points for processing a single product change meant multiple opportunities for transcription errors.
Solution
ECCnet Registry was established in 2001, with support and input from leading Canadian retailers and manufacturers within the grocery, foodservice and pharmacy sectors. To ensure participation by organizations of all sizes, GS1 Canada developed customized tools to fit the diverse business requirements of different vendors and retailers.
Five years in development, the solution is based on a Web site, www.gs1ca.org, and a series of data field tools with a set of criteria for identifying and classifying each product.
To use the system, a vendor enters product information once. This is validated to ensure completeness and compliance to industry-accepted standards. The cleansed data is then synchronized and made available to all of the vendor's retail trading partners. This ensures that they are exchanging accurate, up-to-date, standards-compliant information.
To Longo's, which likes to use smaller suppliers to get unique products in its stores, the capability of users of all sizes to exchange information and compete for business is a compelling aspect of the solution. The grocery retailer derives a competitive advantage by offering customers a wide product selection and getting its products on the shelves quickly. It joined the ECCnet Registry to expedite its access to updated product information.
Now, Longo's simply communicates to its suppliers that it is using ECCnet, and instructs them to upload pertinent product information via its portal. The product information to which it subscribes can then be accessed online by its retail personnel.
Results
For the first time in Canada there is a single point of access between suppliers and retailers, streamlining and supporting the supply chain's e-commerce requirements. From the consumer unit all the way up to pallet configuration, ECCnet Registry permits suppliers to maintain accurate product information in one central registry.
Suppliers input information for each product once and the registry facilitates distribution to their customers. Additions and updates are always aligned.
ECCnet Registry:
- Reduces supply chain information inefficiencies, including item data in retail catalogues, manual cleansing of data and invoice discrepancies;
- Increases a product's speed-to-market time;
- Enables trading partners to "turn off the paper;
- Standardizes the product data to comply with international e-commerce standards so that users can trade internationally, in keeping with our export-based economy;
- Is scalable for use by multiple industry sectors.
Today, product listing through ECCnet Registry is a standard term and condition of trade in the Canadian grocery, pharmacy and foodservice sectors. More than 400,000 products are listed in it.
Innovative Use of Technology
By integrating the latest non-proprietary technology, such as electronic data interchange (EDI), Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) and standard Internet browsers, ECCnet Registry enables users of all scale and technology levels to participate.
A central repository for data synchronization is then created, connecting the supply chain from manufacturer to retailer. This means that users of all sizes can exchange information and compete for business both domestically and globally.
ECCnet Registry's application architecture is based on Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) and Java. The Web application server is New Atlanta's ServletExec, supporting Java servlets, and database connectivity is achieved through New Atlanta's JDBC compliant JTurbo software. Machine-to-Machine API integration is achieved using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) using Web services and XML data stream. ECCnet Registry servers are hosted at a Telus co-location facility.
A 2006 CIPA Winner!
For exceptional application of information technology to transform business processes and bring benefits to many industry stakeholders, GS1 Canada has been awarded a 2006 CIPA Gold Award of Excellence in the Organizational Transformation, Not For Profit category.
Major Technology/Expertise Contributors to Project
Food and Consumer Products of Canada
Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
Canadian Association of Chain Drug Stores
Canadian Association of Pharmacy Distribution Management
Retail Council of Canada
EDITEK Consultants
GXS
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