Many of the barcode labels created nowadays conform to one of the standards developed by the GS1.
The GS1 is a non-for-profit organization that develops business standards in the area of communication. Several barcodes have been established from standards developed by the GS1, including the UPC-A code, the EAN-8 code or the GS1 Datamatrix code. Some of the most important standards developed by the GS1 include:
- The Global Location Number (GLN). This number can be used to identify any legal, physical and functional location of a supplier. The GLN has a standardised format. Its structure is such that any location worldwide can be uniquely and distinctly identified.
- The European Article Number (EAN) code. EAN codes are used for cross-organisational identification of articles and products of any origin (consumer and trading units). They provide information for the purposes of identification only (they are not relevant to article classification or description). Today, some 250,000 businesses employ the EAN code that is maintained by an international network of 59 official code issuers representing 65 countries. The EAN code and the corresponding barcode system together with the UPC codes used in the USA are now in use throughout the world.
- The Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC). The SSCC was developed in order to provide for the identification of individual transport containers. It facilitates the supply, distribution and receipt of items packed in non-standardised containers. As a pure identification code, the SSCC, like the EAN code, provides certain information. In contrast with the EAN code that is assigned to a specific item, the SSCC provides no information on the corresponding article. The 18-character SSCC is at the core of the GS1 system.
- The GS1-128 barcode. This barcode allows organizations to encode information containing up to 40 elements in a single barcode. Hence, a barcode can provide information relevant to identification (e.g. EAN, SSCC), product tracking (e.g. SSCC, batch number), dates (e.g. date of production, expiry date), units of scale (e.g. weight in kilograms), reference numbers (e.g. order number of the recipient), company IDs (e.g. company ID of the recipient) and internal uses.
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