By Bill Bittner, President, BWH Consulting
Nearly 1300 people descended on Nashville, Tenn. this week to learn about the fundamental technical requirements for a successful B2B implementation using the global standards supported by GS1.
GS1's UConnect Conference brought together users and experts from GS1-US, 1SYNC, EPCGlobal and RosettaNet to discuss how to synchronize data, identify logistics units, implement radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and bring business processes into line.
Data synchronization seemed to generate the most excitement at the conference. In May, GS1 announced the number of companies implementing global data synchronization increased from 200 to 5000.
Supervalu announced it has synchronized item data with 500 vendors, representing 60 percent of its volume, through their Data Pool Provider, 1SYNC. Supervalu joins Wal-Mart and Wegmans as one of the top retail implementers of data synchronization. 1SYNC is one the technology companies providing data pool services to retailers and suppliers.
Moderator's Comment: Data synchronization has been a twinkle in the eye of retailers and suppliers for almost ten years. It seems to be finally taking hold. What have been the hurdles and do you think now is the time for data synchronization to succeed?
Attempts to implement data synchronization in the past have presented challenges for manufacturers using multiple internal data sets. Companies had to resolve internal issues before accepting the challenge to provide data to retailers. Now that new processes demanding even more data precision are being implemented, it is more important that this information be correct. The technology is certainly ready to support data synchronization; now it seems businesses are in synch, as well. - Bill Bittner - Moderator