GS1 Industry Engagement Manager Tim Daly answers Linkline’s ‘Five on the Fly’ about some the challenges and future of his sector.

What have the challenges been in your sector?

In supply chain and transport and logistics, we see that some of the major challenges, e.g. stock management, visibility and traceability, can be related to some very simple fixes in terms of the labelling used and the information shared between stakeholders.

How did you/the organisation adapt?

The use of GS1 standards helps organisations to identify their product or logistics units uniquely, capture this information in a standardised barcode and to share structured data about their products or logistics units with stakeholders.

What lessons did you learn/ are you learning from this?

Many Irish manufacturers and Transport and Logistics companies still operate in a highly paper based environments and would benefit from making the digital migration.

What advice can you give based on your experience in this area thus far?

Move your processes from paper to Glass and use GS1 global standards to create unique identifiers for your items.

What does the future hold?

Cross border labelling and customs will require more data to be encoded in the barcode, down the track. Barcodes are becoming more connected and new standards, such as the GS1 Digital Link, allow manufacturers or Transport and Logistics providers to link multiple types of digital information (the products Digital twin) to the barcode on a physical product.

For more information about GS1 Ireland please visit their website www.gs1ie.org