January 8, 2024 • 46 mins
On this episode, we're joined by Melanie Nuce-Hilton, SVP for Innovation and Partnerships at GS1 US, a nonprofit standards organization best known for administering the Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode—and celebrating its fiftieth anniversary right around the same time as MIT CTL. Melanie talks all about the history of supply chain standards over the last 50 years, including the UPC barcode, RFID, and others. And she also discusses the exciting innovations that are on the horizon to uncover new possibilities for industry stakeholders.
Host & Executive Producer: Benjy Kantor Marketing Writer & Producer: Dan McCool Sound Editor: David Benjamin Sound Audio Engineer: Kurt Schneider
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(relaxed music)
- Welcome to MIT Supply Chain Frontiers
presented by the MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics.
I'm your host, Benjy Kantor.
Each episode of Supply Chain Frontiers
features center researchers and staff
or experts from industry
for in-depth conversations
about supply chain management,
logistics, education, and beyond.
First, MIT CTL offers a variety
(00:22):
of educational programsfor graduate students,
seasoned industry professionals,
and anyone at any level looking
to learn more about the supply chain
and logistics domains.
To find out more about all
of CTL's educational offerings,
visit ctl.mit.edu/education.
Today, we welcome MelanieNuce-Hilton of GS1 US,
a not-for-profit informationstandards organization.
(00:44):
Celebrating its 50th anniversary,
GS1 US has 300,000 plus members
and GS1 standards are the most widely-used
supply chain standards in the world.
Based in Ewing, New Jersey,
GS1 US administers theuniversal product code barcode,
as well as other information standards
and data carriers.
Our conversation todaydives into everything
you wanted to know aboutthe UPC barcode and more,
(01:05):
how it's shaped supplychains in the past 50 years,
and where we can expectit to take us from here.
Melanie Nuce-Hilton issenior vice President
for innovation and partnerships at GS1 US.
Her background in retail technology
stretches back 30 years,
which she draws on at GS1 US
to investigate new technologies,
partnerships, and business opportunities
to increase the relevanceand reach of GS1 standards.
(01:27):
Melanie oversees the exploration
of collaboration opportunities
to help businesses leverageemerging technologies,
including the Internetof Things, blockchain,
artificial intelligence,and computer vision
to address multiplebusiness process challenges
such as autonomous retailand circular economy.
Melanie, welcome to CTL'sSupply Chain Frontiers.
Thanks for joining us.
- Yes, thank you for having me.
(01:48):
- I think it'd be great to start,
for the lay people that are listening,
for myself included,
I would love to startwith a general history
of GS1 and GS1 US,
and even a formal history of barcodes.
Like, what has been the roleof the barcode in retail
and the supply chainfor the last 50 years?
- Sure.
I mean the thing is, you know,
when you look back on 50 years
(02:08):
and you think of a technology
that's really endured,
the one dimensional barcode
is a pretty fascinating study.
And now that we're past 50 years,
lots of people have beenkind of investigating
how did it all begin?
But the truth is it wasactually a group of grocers
and consumer packaged goodsbrands that came together.
(02:28):
In 1973, they had someformal ad hoc committee
of the Uniform Grocery CodeCouncil that was assessing
how do you improve efficiency at checkout,
because it was all manual keyingin of prices at that time,
highly inefficient, also very error prone.
And so at the time that this was going on,
there had also been this investigation
(02:49):
into barcode technology,and it all converged.
And so they selected the linear barcode.
Originally, there are some,
actually, some documentaries on this
where they originally werelooking at round barcodes
that kind of, you know,look like a bullseye.
And there's even a quote
from one of the executives saying,
we predicted that there will be
no more than 100,000 unique codes
(03:11):
in existence in the future.
It's kind of like how peopletreated the internet, right?
The worldwide web when it first came out.
I'm like, who's gonna want that?
So, I mean, when you think now
how far we've come and serialization,
and even IOT, right?
Billions and billions of objects
being uniquely identified.
It was very pioneering technology.
But so they decided on this in 1973,
(03:33):
and then in 1974,
the very first UPCA barcode was scanned.
It was on a 10 pack ofWrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum
at a Marsh Supermarket inTroy, Ohio on June 26th.
So next year, while we're celebrating
50 years of GS1 US in 2023,
(03:55):
2024 is truly the 50 year mark
when all of this took place.
So, you know, I think you're seeing
that barcodes are being scanned
over 10 billion times a day
all over the world now,
at every level, not just at point of sale,
but in logistics environments,
we're tagging pallets,cases, even containers,
and we've added other technologies
(04:16):
on top of that as well,
but the whole principle behind that
was unique identification.
And it was something that we
really didn't have before the days,
maybe many of the listenersare too young to remember,
but those price stickers that somebody
in the back of the store was using a gun
to attach little $1.49 pricestickers to everything.
(04:37):
- In that early seventies time period,
there was this sort ofmore mass general thinking
about logistics and about tracking
and about how things are going to move
in this world in a way that
folks hadn't been thinkingabout in the past.
So I'm just kind of curious like how,
from that pack of Wrigley gum,
(04:57):
which is still being sold, you know,
and maybe using, is itusing the same barcode?
I don't know.
How did GS1 become the standard
or the standard bearer from that to today?
- Yes, well that UniformGrocery Code Council,
they dropped the word grocery
in the Uniform Code Council.
Uniform Product Code Council
became the Uniform Code Council,
which eventually became GS1.
(05:17):
So we've had lots of identitycrises over the years,
but luckily, we're still focused
on unique identificationthrough all of that.
But, you know, I thinkthat the principle use case
of going deep at the checkout,
looking up the correct price, right?
Ensuring, I think thatwas a profitability play,
it was an accuracy play,
at that time, to your point, Benjy,
(05:38):
it wasn't an inventory play at the base,
but it was really,
we've gotta do this at scale
in order to achieve benefits.
So bringing GS1 US,
what was the Uniform CodeCouncil into the conversation,
we have, for all of our years of history,
been that broker in the middle of industry
that provides that safe harbor,
(05:59):
we don't talk about competitive issues,
we only talk about collaborative issues,
and we're focused on how canwe drive adoption at scale
from which all of industry can benefit.
And what's so interesting
is even the foresight, maybe,
that the original council members
were thinking of andcoming up with this notion
of a technology to doautomated price lookup,
(06:21):
they probably didn't foresee
just the volume of goods or the lengths
to which they would travelin the future supply chain,
but they were laying the foundation of,
what I would say, is three principles,
identify something, giveit a unique identity,
capture it in a data carrier
that can be read by a machine
so that you can create automation,
(06:43):
and share data about it
so that you can actuallybuild trading partnership.
- Well, and you mentionedsomething, I think,
is sort of at the crux ofwhat you're working on,
which is this adoption at scale,
with that being the operative term,
like, in a world wherethere are so many products
being created digitally, physically,
faster than a barcodecan be slapped on them,
(07:04):
perhaps, how do you do that?
How does adoption at scale happen?
- Lots of heavy lifting.
You know, I think, for us,
it's remembering that we are truly
the evangelists of GS1 standards.
Those of us who work with GS1 US
is one of 116 member organizations
of GS1 all over the world.
So we focus on local implementation
(07:25):
and support in the US,
but we have counterpartsthat do that everywhere else
on the globe as well.
And while many companies have the job
of solving problems for the enterprise,
we have the job of solvingproblems for the industry.
So the hat we wear is a unique hat.
We ask our partners who come to the table
(07:45):
to wear that same unique hat, right?
Take off your enterprise hat,
put your industry hat on.
But we also work with the community
of solution providers
that bring the standards to life.
I always say standards are only as good
as the technology thatbrings them to life.
So a big part of our effort around scale
is educating the technologyprovider community,
one, on the value of standards,
(08:06):
and embedding standards intotheir commercial offerings.
My boss, our CEO, he likes to say,
collaborate to compete.
So on the compete side,
hey, mister and miss solution provider,
go out, take what you're building,
embed standards in it,
and guess what, it'sgonna get you an audience
with the biggest companies in the world,
because anything crossingpoint of sale at retail
(08:29):
for the last 50 years hascarried a GS1 barcode on it.
And in fact, all the back office functions
in the supply chain is it's got
a lot of GS1 in there as well.
So for solution providers,it's teaching them
the value of thestandard, how to embed it,
and then the goal of sortof that matchmaking service,
bringing technologyproviders to the table,
bringing industry users to the table,
(08:49):
so they can meet each other
and then decide how they wanna implement
for business benefit,not just the standard,
but the technology that's being offered,
that does, I like tocall it standards plus,
because any technology provider knows
standard is my baseline, but my plus
is where I make my money,
and they become those additional advocates
beyond just our team,
(09:11):
'cause we're a small team,
in the US, we're about 200 people.
Compared to the customerswe serve, we're small.
And so they, as voicesof advocacy and support,
are critical to thesuccess of the scale piece.
- And we're talking about how
this small sort of unit of tracking
fits into a really big grand scheme.
But to sort of bring it backto a practical standpoint,
(09:34):
if I am, from the verybasic use of this barcode,
I guess the question is whois the customer for GS1 US?
Is it a manufacturer, is it a grocer,
is it a producer,
who's coordinating sothat that is put on there
for tracking for the,throughout the whole system,
and what does it entailfor that person to start?
(09:54):
Like, if somebody's starting a company
or producing a product for the first time,
what does it mean for them
to start participating, basically?
- It's a great question.
At its simplest, it'slicensing a GS1 identifier,
and we issue those in real time.
So you can go to, right?
A GS1 US store, or even a store of any
of the other memberorganizations around the world,
(10:15):
many of them have the ability
to issue those licenses real time.
But as one of my other colleagues,
she says nobody wakes up in the morning
and says, I need a GS1 identifier.
So there's usually a compelling event.
And I would say the twocompelling events are
demand side partners, retailers,
marketplaces across any ofa variety of industries,
we serve over 25 industries in the US.
(10:37):
Our core, of course, retail, food service,
apparel and general merchandise,
kind of that departmentstore and mass merch retail,
and then also healthcare
on both medical deviceand pharmaceutical side.
So somebody on the demand side is saying,
I need to authenticate the identity
of the products in my supply chain.
The parties that are participating
(10:58):
with me in the supply chain,
they will often be the demand point.
Or regulatory drivers.
In the US, we have support
for unique device identification
through the US Food andDrug Administration.
That's all around medical devices
of various levels ofimportance and criticality
when you're dealing with patients, right?
Something from a bandaid,
all the way to an implantable device,
(11:20):
they all have to carry aunique device identifiers,
and GS1 is one of threeissuing agencies around those.
On the pharmaceutical side,
the Food and Drug Administration
passed regulation called
the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.
And we are part of that tracking mechanism
for serialization and chainof custody of products.
So regulatory is always nice,
(11:41):
when the government says do something,
you know you do because you're gonna wanna
avoid fines and jail.
I always like to say,people use GS1 standards
for three reasons, tomake money, to save money,
or to avoid jail,
or, I mean, mitigate risk, I guess,
is probably the easiestway of saying that.
But so the demand side, typically,
is the one asking for that scaled way
(12:01):
of looking at things, right?
I want one unique identifier,
I want that language to be global.
So when we call ourselves
the global language of business,
what we mean is when you scan a barcode,
it identifies exactly thatone thing all over the world.
Now, you and I can talka little bit more detail
about serialization 'cause a bag of,
a nine ounce bag of regularflavored potato chips
(12:23):
has the same ID all over the world.
However, batches, things that are produced
at different times,
there's some additionalidentity embedded in those,
that's really probably why we have
to talk about more than just UPCs
or one dimensional barcodes.
But on the brand side,
it is the brand who who needs to go
and assign that unique identifier.
(12:44):
So GS1 US, we license in two ways.
We will give a capacitywhat we would call a prefix,
that's a fixed part of that barcode
and you assign the other numbers
and you assign them randomly.
So one, you know, a 12-ounce can
of a carbonated beverage
versus a 20-ounce plastic bottle
of a carbonated beverage,
two different IDs chosen
(13:04):
by the beverage manufacturer, typically.
What we do have is a GS1 registry platform
at the global level wherethrough the local members,
like GS1 US, our brands can register
all of the items they've created
very few attributes,
the GTIN and the global trade item number
and then six attributes
that would tell the restof the world what that is.
(13:25):
And that's what's used
for that authentication mechanism
I talked about for thedemand side partner,
especially to your pointearlier that you said
about a lot of items,not just digital items,
but physical items thatactually never flow
through a traditional supply chain.
When you look at marketplaces today,
they do a lot of third-party selling.
So they wanna connect you and I together,
(13:47):
I have an item I wanna sell to you.
They never take possessionof the inventory,
they're just providingme a listing mechanism.
But they wanna know thatif I'm promising you,
you know, a box of 12 number two pencils,
that it isn't actuallya can of green beans.
And so they'll utilize GS1
to verify those basic attributes
about the items so that you know
when you order the pencils,
(14:07):
that you're not gonna end up
with a side dish for your dinner, instead.
- That's really interesting.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, too.
I'm interested in asking about
what you had started to talk about,
sort of changes to the future or plans
or possibilities future.
Before we do that, I would like to ask
that question as if I wasasking it 25 years ago.
(14:28):
So I could imagine in the internet age
of the last 25 or 30 years,
there has been sort of a re-revolution
of what GS1 had startedto do 50 years ago.
And even in those first 25 years,
a ton of it really ramp, right?
Ramp up.
So what has sort of changed,
been revolutionized in the last, you know,
in the internet age, oreven in the last four
(14:50):
or five years, the pandemic age,
and then this idea oflike what the plans are
for the next section of time
that things could bechanging or innovating.
- Well, in the last 25 years,
and this is where MITwas such a pivotal part
of partnership with GS1,
because we launched our efforts
(15:11):
around passive UHF RFID right around 1999.
So we had a couple of big things going on.
1999 was when the first efforts to start
providing better mechanisms
for synchronizing productmaster data happened.
So there was a lot of electronic exchange
of product information,
but there was this desireto have sort of a network
(15:33):
that kind of tracked baselevel product master data
that really started in 1999,so close to 25 years ago.
And then the launch of the RFID effort.
And this was a herculean task
of bringing industry together.
So you definitely had MIT,
and some of our other autoID lab partner universities
(15:54):
around the world in Switzerland and Japan
and Korea, China
coming together around what was
the first inklings of IOT.
And I believe there's someone from MIT
that's credited with coiningthat term, internet of things.
I apologize for not knowing his name.
(16:14):
But when IOT just began,
that just being trickledout into the universe,
that was also the time wherethere was this interest
in serializing products,
and one of the first usecases was anti-theft.
It was shrink, razorblades were one of the big,
from Gillette, were one of the big items
that kept getting stolen.
(16:35):
And they were trying to find a way
to put a technology on the packaging
that would help them trackeach individual unit.
Because interestingly, about retail theft,
it doesn't just happen atthe retail store level,
it happens in the supply chain.
And the idea of some kindof sensor, an RFID sensor,
that could be read anywherein the supply chain
(16:57):
became very appealing tohelp with that use case.
Now, it quickly mushroomedinto inventory tracking,
and beyond that, omni-channel retail.
So to your point of the internet age,
what was interesting in the early 2000s,
so we're maybe a decade into this effort,
which is the other challenge of standards,
(17:17):
it's like the long, long process.
You can never become weary
of your well-doing whenyou're in standards
'cause it takes a long time
to get the industry to trulyembrace readiness around,
you know, these technologies.
But at that time, omni-channel,
and I listened to anexecutive from Macy's,
he said to me, especiallywhen I started innovation,
(17:38):
he said, Melanie, your team
needs to look around the corner
'cause we don't wanna be caught off guard
by the next thing that happens.
Omni-channel retail wasn'ta strategy of the retailers,
it happened to us becausethe consumer started demand
what she wanted, when shewanted, where she wanted.
She wanted to mix thedigital and physical channels
and we had to haveinventory down to the unit
(18:00):
in order to satisfy her need.
So RFID really took off as part of that,
what we were calling cycle counting
each individual unit in a retail store
so that you could exposethat inventory online,
and a customer in Miamicould order a dress
from the Pacific Northwest,
and then now, as you know,
it all morphed into like two day delivery,
(18:21):
overnight delivery, two hour delivery.
we've really become quitedemanding as consumers.
But that initialomni-channel was a big driver
around the increased adoption of RFID,
and GS1 was at the center
of creating all the standards.
So we created standards for serialization
taking that number thatwas in the barcode,
being able to embed it inRFID chip, have it be unique.
(18:45):
So now, you're not just talking about
every nine ounce bag ofregular flavored potato chips,
you're talking about each bag
of regular flavored potato chips.
And beyond that, youwere able to work on that
available to promise inventory,
as well as better inventory tracking
because we were running,
most department stores arerunning like 65% accurate
on inventory, which is just brutal
(19:06):
from a profitability standpoint.
So again, there were waysin this to make money
and save money that were gonna benefit,
the consumer was gonnaget what they wanted,
when they wanted it,
the business was gonna be able
to more effectively track inventory
so you're gonna be able tomanage those levels better
and run a much more efficient,
I don't know if it was always leaner,
but you could run a moreefficient supply chain.
(19:28):
So RFID burgeoned inthat timeframe as well.
And, you know, that may lead us, maybe,
to our next talk about
where we're going in thenext four to five years.
- So I'm hearing, in terms of future,
I'm hearing about things like GS1 US
facilitating a change within industry
to leverage things like 2D barcodes.
What does that mean?
(19:48):
what can a 2D barcode that a UPC symbol,
which is, you know, the1D version cannot do,
what's the thinking there?
What does it mean for thatto roll out into the world?
- Yes, the 2D barcode
offers so much more flexibility.
And there's probablya strong linkage, too,
between 1D, RFID, and 2D
(20:10):
because one thing we're learning
is that where one dimensionalbarcode, like A UPC,
which so many people now know what it is
because of self-checkout.
So to your point,
like before the pandemic,
when we weren't having alot of pickup on things
like curbside or home delivery in the US,
we were lagging behind Europe and others
and their sort of omni-channelat the basics level,
(20:32):
grocery, replenishable products,
and so we were lagging behind,
and the pandemic just really pushed
all that forward in a big way.
But that also exposes some of the gaps.
A one dimensional barcode,a UPC, is designed
to do one thing, go beep.
It goes beep and it tells the software,
please look up my price.
It's phenomenally efficientat doing that, right?
(20:52):
If you've ever watched like speed,
there are barcode contestslike scanning contest,
you can do it pretty quickly,
and you're just gonnawrite price, price, price.
But when you need to getto that rich set of data,
where was this manufactured?
When was it produced?
What is the expiration date?
Most of that today appearsin human readable text
somewhere on a products package today.
(21:14):
And if you're like me,
it can be very difficult to find it.
You're getting, not onlyyou're reading glasses,
but you're magnifying glasses.
And also it's not,
going back to ourconversation about scale,
it's not scalable because
it's a manual intervention every time.
So while RFID actuallyhelps solve those problems,
because when you serialize things,
(21:35):
there is one of one,
and you can find it anywhere it is
in your supply chain by reading it.
The challenge is that RFID technology
comes with certain setof infrastructure costs,
and even RFID tags,
while the prices have come down incredibly
in the last decade that I've been working
on this technology,
still may be prohibitivefor consumer packaged goods
that tend to be low margin.
(21:56):
But you have this need,you have few needs.
I need to be able to pullexpired product off the shelf.
I need to be able to pullrecalled product off the shelf.
I need to be able tocommunicate with consumers
when they may havepurchased recalled product.
I want to actually manage pricing
based on the production date
or the freshness date of product.
None of that is possible
(22:16):
with a one dimensional barcode.
And this was really theimpetus behind the 2D work
that we really started in the US in 2018.
Our counterparts at global,
were working on thisprobably many years before,
but 2017, we ratified a standardcalled GS1 digital link.
And it was about taking GS1 identifiers,
(22:39):
not just the global trade item number,
but other things likedates or batch lock codes
and structuring theminto an internet syntax
so that you could embedthem in a 2D barcode,
that could not only, right?
You could extract the data to do
that beep at point of sale,
but now you could also scan
with various other types of software
(23:00):
to do all those supplychain functions I mentioned,
and even provide the consumer
an engagement point on the product.
Because as the ubiquity ofmobile phone technology, right?
You started to see a mobilephone in every pocket,
at least, certainly, in the US,
you start to see a mobilephone in every pocket.
And then the pandemic helped
(23:21):
because you also started scanning
QR codes all over the place.
Like, nobody wants you touching anything,
so you go to a restaurant,point your phone.
So QR code adoption kind of exploded
during the pandemic.
All the while, amazing work of foresight
by some folks at GS1 to go look at 2D
before this was really even a thing.
I mean, we had to advocate, Benjy,
through some really challenging times
(23:42):
because in the US, therewas a lot of stigma
around 2D barcodes prior to the pandemic.
People were like, oh, they get spoofed
and they're not real, and, you know,
why would anyone do that?
Meanwhile, in countrieslike Columbia and China,
you had upward of 60%,80% consumer adoption
of reading QR codes.
So once again, the US is lagging behind.
(24:02):
We were lagging behindin alternative delivery
of consumables and replenishables.
- And what's the hesitation?
Is it our general conspiracy theory?
- Yes, oh my goodness.
- Spam culture?
- Yes, we should probably,
if I had a dollar forevery time someone said,
but when you scan a QRcode, isn't it tracking you?
(24:23):
I'm like, it's no different than a UPC.
All that's embedded in that code, right?
Is unique identificationabout the product.
Now, you can contextualize a scan.
This is the other thingthat's so interesting
about QR code technology, right?
You pair that with software,
whether that's phone-based software
or lot of mobile devicesin use in retail today
(24:45):
that are helping associates perform
their jobs more efficiently.
Let's go back to what Isaid at the beginning.
You gotta identify something
and capture it in a machine readable way
so you can automate.
And we've got to automate
because we can't dothings at scale in retail
if we don't automate.
So I think 2D opens that up.
Here's an example I love to give
(25:06):
maybe just very straightforward.
I was at a grocery store,
and I happened to noticein the freezer case
there was expired pizza.
Okay, very strange.
Why is there expired pizza?
Well, the little codes that are printed
on the edge of the packaging,
somebody has to go read all those
and read the expiration dates.
I mean I was justhanging out at the store,
(25:26):
I had time to do it.
The average associate probably doesn't.
But if you were to embed expiration date
in a two-dimensional barcode,
and you could equip an associate
with a mobile device, go out,
and they could just scan and basically get
a red or green,
red, pull it off the shelf,
green, leave it on the shelf,
that would expedite their process
of kind of that freshnesschecking immensely.
(25:49):
You could also utilize those dates
to do dynamic pricing.
Maybe that happens at the register.
Because now, when I scan the 2D code,
if it says, oh, the expiration date
of this one is tomorrow,
I'm gonna give you 50 centsoff, dollar, whatever,
you're actually likedriving consumer delight
in a very dynamic andsort of real time way.
Maybe I wasn't expectingthat 50 cents off,
(26:10):
but when it happened at the point of sale,
how much more pleasant wasmy trip to the grocery store?
So I think this, again,
when we talked about convergenceof 50 years ago, right?
Convergence of barcode technology
and a need in the grocery industry
around automated price lookup,
now you're talking aboutmassive use case convergence,
(26:30):
whether that has to dowith consumer engagement,
promotion, dynamic pricing,
recalls, expiration date,
all of these things,
all can be enabled through the use
of a pretty straightforward technology,
and over time, we're gonnabe able to replace that UPC,
the bars and spaces, witha two dimensional QR code
or a data matrix type code on the package
(26:53):
so you're doing a real estate swap,
which will make your brand managers happy
because then, right?
They can still use the rest
of the packaging tomake all of their claims
about how healthy products are for you.
- And like you said, the data exists,
it's already being printed on the package,
just in a less easily digestible way.
So I guess what are thenecessary steps, then,
to make this migration into 2D
(27:14):
as the standard and is that the goal?
- Yep, that is the goal.
We talk about, at GS1 US,we call it Sunrise 2027.
So as you can imagine,it seems so far away
when that was first brought up in 2018,
but time flies quickly.
So the first thing is you've gotta start
thinking about it.
(27:34):
And of course, GS1 US provides resources
to explain in more detail
some of the things I've described
around the why behind atwo dimensional barcode.
But I think, right now, itinvolves all rowing together.
We've gotta be in the same boat
pulling in the same direction,
and we've gotta decide thatwe're gonna make this move.
And there are brandsmaking this move today
(27:56):
so you gotta thank the pioneers
that are gonna be the early adopters.
You know, working in a university,
you have so many innovators.
We have to have that same thing in retail
and healthcare and food service
across all of our sectors.
They're those people thatare willing to pioneer
and go out and lead the charge for us.
But for the average company,
I would say, one, islearn from the pioneers.
(28:19):
Go and read about their stories.
There's a lot of great stories now
coming up on the internet
about what companies are doing.
And then secondly, you'vegotta embrace the idea
that it's a migrationand not a lift and shift.
So there is gonna be a time where many,
and many packages today already carry
both a QR code and a UPC barcode
because people weretesting QR codes, right?
(28:41):
for other use cases.
- Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask about
is are we gonna see 1Dand 2D technology next to,
I mean, like we have seen it, is that,
or is the idea that the 2D will replace 1D
because it will encapsulate
that information as well?
- Eventually, yes.
One of the biggest challenges
when you're dealing witheveryone from, right?
A most sophisticated,multinational retailer
(29:02):
with thousands and thousands of locations,
to a mom and pop convenience store
that's on a back road
as you're making your way kind of north
through Wyoming or Montana,
is you've got the gamut of technology.
What's really interestingis those longstanding
sort of conveniencestores, small operations
that kind of use legacypoint of sale technology.
(29:22):
For every one of those,
there are the new market entrants.
Restaurants are very commonwhere you're now seeing
a lot of the new POS devices pop up
that kind of have that native 2D scanning
already in them.
So we're working on this continuum
of trying to capturethe most sophisticated
to the least sophisticated
and push us all to a point of adoption.
So there will be a period of coexistence,
(29:43):
but eventually,
that's why we're calling it Sunrise 2027.
That's the time when youwanna be able to scan the 2D,
but probably the 1D, the UPC,
hasn't gone away at that point,
but over those next few years,
we would expect it should.
- Well, and it strikesme that the challenge
isn't necessarily the adoption of
the codes themselves because the,
(30:04):
I mean, that is a challenge,
but because they're digitally accessible
and easily to retrieve,
but not so much as the hardware,
the POS devices, and like,
I'm going to my local grocery store,
my star market, and they have a scanner
that reads a particular kind of code.
What does it mean forhundreds of their stores
and hundreds of different stores
having hundreds of stores
(30:24):
to be able to integrate that
into what they're already doing?
- One thing I do think is kind of a gift
with purchase is you can piggyback
on another use case,
and in some situations,
loyalty has been the ground breaker.
So when you think of loyalty programs
in a lot of of stores now,
you scan your QR code,that's your loyalty ID.
(30:45):
So they have 2D scanning.
It's happening in a lot
of different retailers today,
and that, when you said,
hey, have you already implemented
two dimensional scanningfor your loyalty program?
Oh yeah, well let's figure out
if we can repurposethat for point of sale.
You get the creative ideas start flowing.
So I love when,
I like to, you know,
I use all of my kind of colloquialisms,
(31:06):
but convergence, multiple use cases
is gonna be where your ROI is, right?
You don't wanna just solve one thing,
you wanna solve,
a passive checkout is another one, right?
Letting a customer checkoutwith a mobile device.
But piggybacking.
Let's jump on top of another use case
where you've maybe alreadymade the investment.
Because loyalty programs
are phenomenally appealing to retailers,
(31:27):
and if they're willing tomake hardware investments.
And a lot of times, Benjy,
actually, it's just a software upgrade.
It's actually not replacing the scanner.
Most scanners, if you'vebought it anytime,
probably in the last decade,
probably has the capability
and it's a matter of getting it turned on
if it's not already enabled.
- Well, and I was alsothinking about this situation
(31:49):
with stores that don't even have checkout.
You just walk out and scanwhat's in your bag, right?
So it's got those sort of like powerful,
of which I'm sure there are gonna be
consumer adoption issues,
maybe more in the United States
than elsewhere or vice versa
'cause of some of the issues
that you've mentioned before.
Are there brands currentlyusing 2D technology
the way that you're envisioning them?
(32:11):
- Yes, very much so.
Some stores, not in the US,
but a couple that are happening in the US,
Puma, manufacturer ofclothing, apparel, footwear,
in their flagships store in New York,
they actually implemented, so both RFID,
because RFID provides greatpassive inventory tracking,
so you can count your storelots and lots of times
(32:33):
using RFID readers
and keep an accurate count of inventory,
but they also implemented2D for consumer engagement
and they have actually,in their own retail store,
taken the UPC code off the tag.
So they are doing a combination
of two dimensional barcode and RFID,
consumer engagement, point of sale,
and inventory management.
(32:55):
Another one that we know has implemented
two dimensional barcodes
with GS1 digital link is Patagonia,
probably for the consumerengagement use case,
more so as their starting point.
And then Pepsi.
And PepsiCo has been a very big advocate
for GS1 digital link because,
frankly, you can put any URL in a QR code,
just to be clear, right?
(33:16):
I don't wanna mislead about,
the technology is the technology,
but it's about putting thatGS1 digital link syntax
which allows you to readthe unique identifier,
read the additional data,
like, perhaps the expiration date
for the point of sale operation
or for the inventory operation,
but then also, for consumer engagement.
And so Pepsi started, theyused 2D to relaunch Starry,
(33:40):
which was a rework of a,
I think their old Sierra Mist product.
They used it.
But also John Phillips,
who is the senior vice president
of customer supply chain
and go-to-market at PepsiCo,
he's been a strong advocate for 2D
on product, as well as GS1 digital link.
And he has spoken at conferences,
he's also done a video with GS1 US
(34:01):
really, again, as an outspoken proponent
of the industry movetoward this technology.
So I think there are many other examples
of companies that are implementing this,
but I think, from apublic facing perspective,
those are three that I know of
that have kind of shared their stories
for the community justto galvanize around.
(34:22):
- What are the roadblocksfor moving forward
with this or with otherplans you may have?
I'm thinking of something, like,
you may have a different phrase for this,
but the thing I'm thinking of is sort of,
is there a concern with what I would call
splitting the root
or splitting the standard where there's,
I could go to a QR code generator
and create my own QR codes
(34:43):
and use them in my own mom and pop shop
or do whatever to scan
and do whatever I wanna do there.
Are there concerns with that?
Are there other roadblocks
to moving forward andhow do you approach them?
- That use case exists in 1D world too,
because as long as you keep
the identifier within your four walls,
you probably don't see the need
for globally unique identification.
(35:04):
But as soon as you wanna branch out
and you wanna list onan internet marketplace,
or you wanna, we've had companies
who have created productswith proprietary identifiers
that we're gonna sell justdirect to consumer, right?
I'm gonna post up a website
and I'm gonna sell outta my garage.
And then as soon as they try to branch out
(35:24):
to an online listing, or we had one,
a small batch coffee roaster
that got a deal withLowe's supermarkets in,
you know, North Carolina
and had to put a UPC on there
because that's whatnationally-branded retail grocers do.
So in one sense, you've got momentum,
you've got an industry
that's scanning 10 billion barcodes a day
(35:45):
all over the world, multiple industries.
They're relying on thatglobally unique identifier
because nothing worsethan clashes that happen.
So you could go and createa unique identifier,
but there's no guaranteethat it's gonna be unique
outside your four walls without a steward
to kind of help manage that,
the application of that on a global basis.
So I've actually talked with startups,
(36:06):
and I've talked with startups
who went down theproprietary path cosmetics
and then got a deal with Sephora
and had to go and relabelall their packaging
because they scan GS1 barcodes
in their digital and physical operations.
And then I've met companies,
I met this company that was manufacturing
shelf stable soups,
but in kind of innovative packaging,
(36:28):
little more environmentally-friendly,
lots of great nutritional claims,
actually had the chanceto try one of their soups,
it was delicious.
And they came to this pitch of I was at
with GS1 barcodes on theproduct and I was like,
hey, I just have to say,
I'm pleasantly surprised.
Like, how did you know?
Well, one of our advisors used to work
(36:48):
for a big consumer package goods company
and they told us we needto go get a GS1 identifier
to put in our barcode.
Y'all might be too young for this,
but there was this Fabergecommercial in the 80s
with Heather Locklear that she would say,
you know, you'll love this product so much
that you'll tell two friends,
and she'll tell two friends,
and she'll tell two friends,
and her face just keptmultiplying on the screen
(37:09):
as you just showed thepower of word of mouth.
And that's a lot of whathappens with GS1 standards.
So I think people realize that I'm,
if I'm crossing a supply chain line,
if I'm working acrossa network of partners,
these identifiers haveto be able to stand up
to multiple reads by different parties
who have a different need to have info
(37:30):
to append info to theproduct or the location
and send it on to thenext party down the line.
Standards are the heart of that,
of that notion of uniqueness, persistence,
that guarantee that we're right.
We're not supportingduplication across networks,
that's been the big thing.
So, and I think the abilityto read that barcode
and then interpret it,
because if you're creating it randomly,
(37:52):
there's a risk of it,
it'll get to a read point
and it won't be able to read or interpret
what you've put in the barcode.
So that's really why we existas a standards org, right?
We are a not-for-profitorganization all over the world.
Our goal is really to serve
at the behest of industry,
but also, to continueto support our members
that look around the corner
(38:13):
so that we're helping companies anticipate
how technology could benefit the future
of business rather than
just kind of rest on our laurels, right?
My team spends a lot of time
investigating hype, debunkingmyths around emerging tech,
and that's probably whereall of this actually started
when you think aboutthe myths around QR code
(38:34):
that have truly evaporatedin the last few years.
Same thing happened with RFID, right?
20 years ago, somebodyhad to work their way
through all of the truthand all of the fluff
and find that true usecase in ROI for companies.
- Yeah, well, you've brought up
a really important question,
which is who's Heather Locklear?
No, I'm (indistinct) be joking,
(38:55):
We all know.
But that, I guess whatI'm thinking about is
you had mentioned GS1 as a nonprofit.
Are there other ways thatan organization, a company,
a manufacturer, or even an end consumer,
are there other reasons
why they would be interactingwith GS1 or GS1 US
to learn more, to hearabout best practices
(39:16):
for other sorts ofpartnerships or information?
- Yes.
So our primary role, right?
Is to issue unique identifiers.
And as I mentioned, we can do that by,
we actually, as I saidbefore, we issue prefixes,
we also issue identifiers in whole.
So if you're a very small company
and you're like,
look, I'm making threedifferent spice blends
that I wanna put on grocery store shelves
(39:37):
or sell on a marketplace.
You can just get three unique identifiers
from GS1 US and do that.
That would be the basic level customer.
But we also have acommunity engagement team
that works with industry partners
who want to sit around the table
and help define or articulate the problems
and define the solutions of the future.
So those are great ways to get engaged
(39:57):
here in the US or anywhereall over the world, frankly,
where also with thatsolution partner community,
sometimes you're approachingyour business saying,
I wanna grow, but I'm notsure I'm gonna need help.
I need a logistics provider,
or I need someone to helpme redesign my packaging.
And we have over ahundred solution partners
in the US alone
that can help do thosethings, even, right?
(40:19):
ERP software deployments.
And they run the gamut ofanything that has to do
with helping you improve the efficiency
of your supply chain andgrow your supply chain.
So those may be reasons to get involved.
I also, just selfishly, from my team,
we wanna pilot emerging technology.
So my team will work with
whether you're a large corporate,
whether you're a small startup,
(40:40):
we work with both end usersand technology companies
to pilot solutions, whether, you know,
those are around digital receipts,
computer vision, the useof multi-sensor technology
to drive multiple use cases.
We just completed a big project
around cold chain applications for IOT
and how you manifest themacross the supply chain.
(41:02):
Because the lovely thing about technology
is there's so much to choose from,
and the real lift is in,
can I get to the data layer
so that I can ingest that data, digest it,
and then disseminate it to the systems
and the people that needto take advantage of it
and we do all of thosekinds of things in GS1 US.
Looking across the holistic supply chain,
(41:24):
how do we find wheredata, where technology,
and where standards canintersect to solve a problem.
Whether that's a legacy problem,
so we've been chasing thingslike product traceability
for two decades withcertain core industries,
or whether that's the future,
which is to say thismove toward sensor-based,
recommerce, embedded threads in garments
(41:45):
that can actually use thatidentity for recommerce
or recycling purposes.
The notion of circularity
around plastics and product packaging,
we have teams that areworking on all those things.
We call it the circularjourney of the product.
All the parties involved,all the steps involved,
we really wanna make sure
that the standards arecovering all the needs
(42:06):
across the board.
- Well, and as you mentioned,
the integration of 2D
will enable, not justthe tracking of a product
for manufacturers or where to sold,
or for the end consumer,how much it costs,
but also enables a whole promotions
and marketing platform, which is my world,
to enable people to findout more information
(42:28):
about products or companies
or promotions or giveawaysor whatever they want.
So this one code can domany different things
for different times or people or places
or how they're read.
So I find that componentreally eye-opening.
It's been just a, you know,
a pleasure of speaking with you
and really appreciate you being here.
I guess I want to sort ofclose off an opportunity
(42:50):
to sort of talk about
what the next section oftime is gonna look like.
What four to five yearswill look like for GS1
for GS1 US, and for its partners.
- Sure.
For the core community,this Sunrise 2027 effort
and the move to implement2D broadly across retail
(43:11):
and across healthcare is significant.
So there are a lot of folks
that are heavily investedin ensuring that happens,
both inside GS1 US and rightin our member community
and our partner community.
But from an innovation lens,
one of the most exciting things
that we've been working on
is around verifiable credentials.
And this is all aboutdigital identity technology
(43:32):
and how we can actually link digital data,
cryptographically secure digital data
about products as theymove through a supply chain
to the products that are movingthrough the supply chain.
So if you think about asupply chain as three things,
there's the physical flow,
okay, we know products get to shelves
and they get to doorstepsand that's happening,
(43:52):
the magic of trade happens every day.
There's the financial supply chain
which makes sure all those people get paid
'cause nobody can make more products
if they don't get money.
And then there is thedigital supply chain.
And this is sometimes purely digital.
There's so much pure digital
that's happening today with virtual worlds
and all the purchases that you're doing
that never manifest in a physical product.
(44:14):
But then there is so much digital data
about products, and totruly unlock the power
of things like artificial intelligence
and what it brings to the table,
we've got to find waysto bind the physical
and the digital together.
And so that's a big focus
of our innovation team as well.
And we believe, I mean, it started,
it's been a five-year journey.
(44:34):
There's at least five more years
in the journey, probably more like 15.
But that notion offinding cryptographically
secure ways to link digital data
to physical products hassuch broad implications
for cross-border trade,for product claims,
the authenticity around product claims
and certifications just for assurance
(44:55):
from any party in the supply chain,
any regulator, and evenat a consumer level,
and we're utilizing technologies that,
some people call them decentralized,
I like to say distributed technologies
so that it's kind of self-evident.
I can validate somethingwith my own device,
my mobile phone, if I wish,
that doesn't rely on me goingthrough a bunch of hoops
(45:16):
and paywalls and firewallsto get to the truth.
I think this is a reallyfascinating evolution.
And, of course, something that
I know our partners atMIT have been looking at
for many years because it even applies
to things like educationalcredentials, right?
Can you prove the validity of something
through a credentialthat is self-revealing?
(45:38):
And also, can you revoke those credentials
so that there's a digital way to say, hey,
this is no longer valid information.
Very hard to do that in an analog world.
When you think about, you know,
just saying that somethingis within warranty,
or something is organic,
or something is gluten-free,
those things can change at any time,
but our paper chasing, assupply chain practitioners,
(45:58):
is not an effective way
to ensure that we're keepingthat information up-to-date
and providing consumers withan authentic experience,
that's gonna have to be done digitally.
So for us, that's really oneof the next big frontiers
that our team is also working on
in parallel with this move
to richer product information on package.
- Well, thank you.
(46:18):
Our guest today on Supply Chain Frontiers
has been Melanie Nuce-Hilton,
senior Vice President forInnovation and Partnerships
at GS1 US.
Melanie, thank you so much for joining us.
This has really been a great conversation,
and I know that so many people
will love hearing piecesof this as well, too.
- Yes, thank you. My pleasure.
- Thanks for listening to this episode
(46:38):
of MIT Supply Chain Frontiers,
presented by the MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics.
To check out other episodes,
visit ctl.mit.edu/podcasts.
And for more on the center's research,
outreach, and education initiatives,
make sure to visit us at ctl.mit.edu.
Until next time.
(relaxed music)
(relaxed music)
- Welcome to MIT Supply Chain Frontiers
presented by the MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics.
I'm your host, Benjy Kantor.
Each episode of Supply Chain Frontiers
features center researchers and staff
or experts from industry
for in-depth conversations
about supply chain management,
logistics, education, and beyond.
First, MIT CTL offers a variety
(00:22):
of educational programsfor graduate students,
seasoned industry professionals,
and anyone at any level looking
to learn more about the supply chain
and logistics domains.
To find out more about all
of CTL's educational offerings,
visit ctl.mit.edu/education.
Today, we welcome MelanieNuce-Hilton of GS1 US,
a not-for-profit informationstandards organization.
(00:44):
Celebrating its 50th anniversary,
GS1 US has 300,000 plus members
and GS1 standards are the most widely-used
supply chain standards in the world.
Based in Ewing, New Jersey,
GS1 US administers theuniversal product code barcode,
as well as other information standards
and data carriers.
Our conversation todaydives into everything
you wanted to know aboutthe UPC barcode and more,
(01:05):
how it's shaped supplychains in the past 50 years,
and where we can expectit to take us from here.
Melanie Nuce-Hilton issenior vice President
for innovation and partnerships at GS1 US.
Her background in retail technology
stretches back 30 years,
which she draws on at GS1 US
to investigate new technologies,
partnerships, and business opportunities
to increase the relevanceand reach of GS1 standards.
(01:27):
Melanie oversees the exploration
of collaboration opportunities
to help businesses leverageemerging technologies,
including the Internetof Things, blockchain,
artificial intelligence,and computer vision
to address multiplebusiness process challenges
such as autonomous retailand circular economy.
Melanie, welcome to CTL'sSupply Chain Frontiers.
Thanks for joining us.
- Yes, thank you for having me.
(01:48):
- I think it'd be great to start,
for the lay people that are listening,
for myself included,
I would love to startwith a general history
of GS1 and GS1 US,
and even a formal history of barcodes.
Like, what has been the roleof the barcode in retail
and the supply chainfor the last 50 years?
- Sure.
I mean the thing is, you know,
when you look back on 50 years
(02:08):
and you think of a technology
that's really endured,
the one dimensional barcode
is a pretty fascinating study.
And now that we're past 50 years,
lots of people have beenkind of investigating
how did it all begin?
But the truth is it wasactually a group of grocers
and consumer packaged goodsbrands that came together.
(02:28):
In 1973, they had someformal ad hoc committee
of the Uniform Grocery CodeCouncil that was assessing
how do you improve efficiency at checkout,
because it was all manual keyingin of prices at that time,
highly inefficient, also very error prone.
And so at the time that this was going on,
there had also been this investigation
(02:49):
into barcode technology,and it all converged.
And so they selected the linear barcode.
Originally, there are some,
actually, some documentaries on this
where they originally werelooking at round barcodes
that kind of, you know,look like a bullseye.
And there's even a quote
from one of the executives saying,
we predicted that there will be
no more than 100,000 unique codes
(03:11):
in existence in the future.
It's kind of like how peopletreated the internet, right?
The worldwide web when it first came out.
I'm like, who's gonna want that?
So, I mean, when you think now
how far we've come and serialization,
and even IOT, right?
Billions and billions of objects
being uniquely identified.
It was very pioneering technology.
But so they decided on this in 1973,
(03:33):
and then in 1974,
the very first UPCA barcode was scanned.
It was on a 10 pack ofWrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum
at a Marsh Supermarket inTroy, Ohio on June 26th.
So next year, while we're celebrating
50 years of GS1 US in 2023,
(03:55):
2024 is truly the 50 year mark
when all of this took place.
So, you know, I think you're seeing
that barcodes are being scanned
over 10 billion times a day
all over the world now,
at every level, not just at point of sale,
but in logistics environments,
we're tagging pallets,cases, even containers,
and we've added other technologies
(04:16):
on top of that as well,
but the whole principle behind that
was unique identification.
And it was something that we
really didn't have before the days,
maybe many of the listenersare too young to remember,
but those price stickers that somebody
in the back of the store was using a gun
to attach little $1.49 pricestickers to everything.
(04:37):
- In that early seventies time period,
there was this sort ofmore mass general thinking
about logistics and about tracking
and about how things are going to move
in this world in a way that
folks hadn't been thinkingabout in the past.
So I'm just kind of curious like how,
from that pack of Wrigley gum,
(04:57):
which is still being sold, you know,
and maybe using, is itusing the same barcode?
I don't know.
How did GS1 become the standard
or the standard bearer from that to today?
- Yes, well that UniformGrocery Code Council,
they dropped the word grocery
in the Uniform Code Council.
Uniform Product Code Council
became the Uniform Code Council,
which eventually became GS1.
(05:17):
So we've had lots of identitycrises over the years,
but luckily, we're still focused
on unique identificationthrough all of that.
But, you know, I thinkthat the principle use case
of going deep at the checkout,
looking up the correct price, right?
Ensuring, I think thatwas a profitability play,
it was an accuracy play,
at that time, to your point, Benjy,
(05:38):
it wasn't an inventory play at the base,
but it was really,
we've gotta do this at scale
in order to achieve benefits.
So bringing GS1 US,
what was the Uniform CodeCouncil into the conversation,
we have, for all of our years of history,
been that broker in the middle of industry
that provides that safe harbor,
(05:59):
we don't talk about competitive issues,
we only talk about collaborative issues,
and we're focused on how canwe drive adoption at scale
from which all of industry can benefit.
And what's so interesting
is even the foresight, maybe,
that the original council members
were thinking of andcoming up with this notion
of a technology to doautomated price lookup,
(06:21):
they probably didn't foresee
just the volume of goods or the lengths
to which they would travelin the future supply chain,
but they were laying the foundation of,
what I would say, is three principles,
identify something, giveit a unique identity,
capture it in a data carrier
that can be read by a machine
so that you can create automation,
(06:43):
and share data about it
so that you can actuallybuild trading partnership.
- Well, and you mentionedsomething, I think,
is sort of at the crux ofwhat you're working on,
which is this adoption at scale,
with that being the operative term,
like, in a world wherethere are so many products
being created digitally, physically,
faster than a barcodecan be slapped on them,
(07:04):
perhaps, how do you do that?
How does adoption at scale happen?
- Lots of heavy lifting.
You know, I think, for us,
it's remembering that we are truly
the evangelists of GS1 standards.
Those of us who work with GS1 US
is one of 116 member organizations
of GS1 all over the world.
So we focus on local implementation
(07:25):
and support in the US,
but we have counterpartsthat do that everywhere else
on the globe as well.
And while many companies have the job
of solving problems for the enterprise,
we have the job of solvingproblems for the industry.
So the hat we wear is a unique hat.
We ask our partners who come to the table
(07:45):
to wear that same unique hat, right?
Take off your enterprise hat,
put your industry hat on.
But we also work with the community
of solution providers
that bring the standards to life.
I always say standards are only as good
as the technology thatbrings them to life.
So a big part of our effort around scale
is educating the technologyprovider community,
one, on the value of standards,
(08:06):
and embedding standards intotheir commercial offerings.
My boss, our CEO, he likes to say,
collaborate to compete.
So on the compete side,
hey, mister and miss solution provider,
go out, take what you're building,
embed standards in it,
and guess what, it'sgonna get you an audience
with the biggest companies in the world,
because anything crossingpoint of sale at retail
(08:29):
for the last 50 years hascarried a GS1 barcode on it.
And in fact, all the back office functions
in the supply chain is it's got
a lot of GS1 in there as well.
So for solution providers,it's teaching them
the value of thestandard, how to embed it,
and then the goal of sortof that matchmaking service,
bringing technologyproviders to the table,
bringing industry users to the table,
(08:49):
so they can meet each other
and then decide how they wanna implement
for business benefit,not just the standard,
but the technology that's being offered,
that does, I like tocall it standards plus,
because any technology provider knows
standard is my baseline, but my plus
is where I make my money,
and they become those additional advocates
beyond just our team,
(09:11):
'cause we're a small team,
in the US, we're about 200 people.
Compared to the customerswe serve, we're small.
And so they, as voicesof advocacy and support,
are critical to thesuccess of the scale piece.
- And we're talking about how
this small sort of unit of tracking
fits into a really big grand scheme.
But to sort of bring it backto a practical standpoint,
(09:34):
if I am, from the verybasic use of this barcode,
I guess the question is whois the customer for GS1 US?
Is it a manufacturer, is it a grocer,
is it a producer,
who's coordinating sothat that is put on there
for tracking for the,throughout the whole system,
and what does it entailfor that person to start?
(09:54):
Like, if somebody's starting a company
or producing a product for the first time,
what does it mean for them
to start participating, basically?
- It's a great question.
At its simplest, it'slicensing a GS1 identifier,
and we issue those in real time.
So you can go to, right?
A GS1 US store, or even a store of any
of the other memberorganizations around the world,
(10:15):
many of them have the ability
to issue those licenses real time.
But as one of my other colleagues,
she says nobody wakes up in the morning
and says, I need a GS1 identifier.
So there's usually a compelling event.
And I would say the twocompelling events are
demand side partners, retailers,
marketplaces across any ofa variety of industries,
we serve over 25 industries in the US.
(10:37):
Our core, of course, retail, food service,
apparel and general merchandise,
kind of that departmentstore and mass merch retail,
and then also healthcare
on both medical deviceand pharmaceutical side.
So somebody on the demand side is saying,
I need to authenticate the identity
of the products in my supply chain.
The parties that are participating
(10:58):
with me in the supply chain,
they will often be the demand point.
Or regulatory drivers.
In the US, we have support
for unique device identification
through the US Food andDrug Administration.
That's all around medical devices
of various levels ofimportance and criticality
when you're dealing with patients, right?
Something from a bandaid,
all the way to an implantable device,
(11:20):
they all have to carry aunique device identifiers,
and GS1 is one of threeissuing agencies around those.
On the pharmaceutical side,
the Food and Drug Administration
passed regulation called
the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.
And we are part of that tracking mechanism
for serialization and chainof custody of products.
So regulatory is always nice,
(11:41):
when the government says do something,
you know you do because you're gonna wanna
avoid fines and jail.
I always like to say,people use GS1 standards
for three reasons, tomake money, to save money,
or to avoid jail,
or, I mean, mitigate risk, I guess,
is probably the easiestway of saying that.
But so the demand side, typically,
is the one asking for that scaled way
(12:01):
of looking at things, right?
I want one unique identifier,
I want that language to be global.
So when we call ourselves
the global language of business,
what we mean is when you scan a barcode,
it identifies exactly thatone thing all over the world.
Now, you and I can talka little bit more detail
about serialization 'cause a bag of,
a nine ounce bag of regularflavored potato chips
(12:23):
has the same ID all over the world.
However, batches, things that are produced
at different times,
there's some additionalidentity embedded in those,
that's really probably why we have
to talk about more than just UPCs
or one dimensional barcodes.
But on the brand side,
it is the brand who who needs to go
and assign that unique identifier.
(12:44):
So GS1 US, we license in two ways.
We will give a capacitywhat we would call a prefix,
that's a fixed part of that barcode
and you assign the other numbers
and you assign them randomly.
So one, you know, a 12-ounce can
of a carbonated beverage
versus a 20-ounce plastic bottle
of a carbonated beverage,
two different IDs chosen
(13:04):
by the beverage manufacturer, typically.
What we do have is a GS1 registry platform
at the global level wherethrough the local members,
like GS1 US, our brands can register
all of the items they've created
very few attributes,
the GTIN and the global trade item number
and then six attributes
that would tell the restof the world what that is.
(13:25):
And that's what's used
for that authentication mechanism
I talked about for thedemand side partner,
especially to your pointearlier that you said
about a lot of items,not just digital items,
but physical items thatactually never flow
through a traditional supply chain.
When you look at marketplaces today,
they do a lot of third-party selling.
So they wanna connect you and I together,
(13:47):
I have an item I wanna sell to you.
They never take possessionof the inventory,
they're just providingme a listing mechanism.
But they wanna know thatif I'm promising you,
you know, a box of 12 number two pencils,
that it isn't actuallya can of green beans.
And so they'll utilize GS1
to verify those basic attributes
about the items so that you know
when you order the pencils,
(14:07):
that you're not gonna end up
with a side dish for your dinner, instead.
- That's really interesting.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, too.
I'm interested in asking about
what you had started to talk about,
sort of changes to the future or plans
or possibilities future.
Before we do that, I would like to ask
that question as if I wasasking it 25 years ago.
(14:28):
So I could imagine in the internet age
of the last 25 or 30 years,
there has been sort of a re-revolution
of what GS1 had startedto do 50 years ago.
And even in those first 25 years,
a ton of it really ramp, right?
Ramp up.
So what has sort of changed,
been revolutionized in the last, you know,
in the internet age, oreven in the last four
(14:50):
or five years, the pandemic age,
and then this idea oflike what the plans are
for the next section of time
that things could bechanging or innovating.
- Well, in the last 25 years,
and this is where MITwas such a pivotal part
of partnership with GS1,
because we launched our efforts
(15:11):
around passive UHF RFID right around 1999.
So we had a couple of big things going on.
1999 was when the first efforts to start
providing better mechanisms
for synchronizing productmaster data happened.
So there was a lot of electronic exchange
of product information,
but there was this desireto have sort of a network
(15:33):
that kind of tracked baselevel product master data
that really started in 1999,so close to 25 years ago.
And then the launch of the RFID effort.
And this was a herculean task
of bringing industry together.
So you definitely had MIT,
and some of our other autoID lab partner universities
(15:54):
around the world in Switzerland and Japan
and Korea, China
coming together around what was
the first inklings of IOT.
And I believe there's someone from MIT
that's credited with coiningthat term, internet of things.
I apologize for not knowing his name.
(16:14):
But when IOT just began,
that just being trickledout into the universe,
that was also the time wherethere was this interest
in serializing products,
and one of the first usecases was anti-theft.
It was shrink, razorblades were one of the big,
from Gillette, were one of the big items
that kept getting stolen.
(16:35):
And they were trying to find a way
to put a technology on the packaging
that would help them trackeach individual unit.
Because interestingly, about retail theft,
it doesn't just happen atthe retail store level,
it happens in the supply chain.
And the idea of some kindof sensor, an RFID sensor,
that could be read anywherein the supply chain
(16:57):
became very appealing tohelp with that use case.
Now, it quickly mushroomedinto inventory tracking,
and beyond that, omni-channel retail.
So to your point of the internet age,
what was interesting in the early 2000s,
so we're maybe a decade into this effort,
which is the other challenge of standards,
(17:17):
it's like the long, long process.
You can never become weary
of your well-doing whenyou're in standards
'cause it takes a long time
to get the industry to trulyembrace readiness around,
you know, these technologies.
But at that time, omni-channel,
and I listened to anexecutive from Macy's,
he said to me, especiallywhen I started innovation,
(17:38):
he said, Melanie, your team
needs to look around the corner
'cause we don't wanna be caught off guard
by the next thing that happens.
Omni-channel retail wasn'ta strategy of the retailers,
it happened to us becausethe consumer started demand
what she wanted, when shewanted, where she wanted.
She wanted to mix thedigital and physical channels
and we had to haveinventory down to the unit
(18:00):
in order to satisfy her need.
So RFID really took off as part of that,
what we were calling cycle counting
each individual unit in a retail store
so that you could exposethat inventory online,
and a customer in Miamicould order a dress
from the Pacific Northwest,
and then now, as you know,
it all morphed into like two day delivery,
(18:21):
overnight delivery, two hour delivery.
we've really become quitedemanding as consumers.
But that initialomni-channel was a big driver
around the increased adoption of RFID,
and GS1 was at the center
of creating all the standards.
So we created standards for serialization
taking that number thatwas in the barcode,
being able to embed it inRFID chip, have it be unique.
(18:45):
So now, you're not just talking about
every nine ounce bag ofregular flavored potato chips,
you're talking about each bag
of regular flavored potato chips.
And beyond that, youwere able to work on that
available to promise inventory,
as well as better inventory tracking
because we were running,
most department stores arerunning like 65% accurate
on inventory, which is just brutal
(19:06):
from a profitability standpoint.
So again, there were waysin this to make money
and save money that were gonna benefit,
the consumer was gonnaget what they wanted,
when they wanted it,
the business was gonna be able
to more effectively track inventory
so you're gonna be able tomanage those levels better
and run a much more efficient,
I don't know if it was always leaner,
but you could run a moreefficient supply chain.
(19:28):
So RFID burgeoned inthat timeframe as well.
And, you know, that may lead us, maybe,
to our next talk about
where we're going in thenext four to five years.
- So I'm hearing, in terms of future,
I'm hearing about things like GS1 US
facilitating a change within industry
to leverage things like 2D barcodes.
What does that mean?
(19:48):
what can a 2D barcode that a UPC symbol,
which is, you know, the1D version cannot do,
what's the thinking there?
What does it mean for thatto roll out into the world?
- Yes, the 2D barcode
offers so much more flexibility.
And there's probablya strong linkage, too,
between 1D, RFID, and 2D
(20:10):
because one thing we're learning
is that where one dimensionalbarcode, like A UPC,
which so many people now know what it is
because of self-checkout.
So to your point,
like before the pandemic,
when we weren't having alot of pickup on things
like curbside or home delivery in the US,
we were lagging behind Europe and others
and their sort of omni-channelat the basics level,
(20:32):
grocery, replenishable products,
and so we were lagging behind,
and the pandemic just really pushed
all that forward in a big way.
But that also exposes some of the gaps.
A one dimensional barcode,a UPC, is designed
to do one thing, go beep.
It goes beep and it tells the software,
please look up my price.
It's phenomenally efficientat doing that, right?
(20:52):
If you've ever watched like speed,
there are barcode contestslike scanning contest,
you can do it pretty quickly,
and you're just gonnawrite price, price, price.
But when you need to getto that rich set of data,
where was this manufactured?
When was it produced?
What is the expiration date?
Most of that today appearsin human readable text
somewhere on a products package today.
(21:14):
And if you're like me,
it can be very difficult to find it.
You're getting, not onlyyou're reading glasses,
but you're magnifying glasses.
And also it's not,
going back to ourconversation about scale,
it's not scalable because
it's a manual intervention every time.
So while RFID actuallyhelps solve those problems,
because when you serialize things,
(21:35):
there is one of one,
and you can find it anywhere it is
in your supply chain by reading it.
The challenge is that RFID technology
comes with certain setof infrastructure costs,
and even RFID tags,
while the prices have come down incredibly
in the last decade that I've been working
on this technology,
still may be prohibitivefor consumer packaged goods
that tend to be low margin.
(21:56):
But you have this need,you have few needs.
I need to be able to pullexpired product off the shelf.
I need to be able to pullrecalled product off the shelf.
I need to be able tocommunicate with consumers
when they may havepurchased recalled product.
I want to actually manage pricing
based on the production date
or the freshness date of product.
None of that is possible
(22:16):
with a one dimensional barcode.
And this was really theimpetus behind the 2D work
that we really started in the US in 2018.
Our counterparts at global,
were working on thisprobably many years before,
but 2017, we ratified a standardcalled GS1 digital link.
And it was about taking GS1 identifiers,
(22:39):
not just the global trade item number,
but other things likedates or batch lock codes
and structuring theminto an internet syntax
so that you could embedthem in a 2D barcode,
that could not only, right?
You could extract the data to do
that beep at point of sale,
but now you could also scan
with various other types of software
(23:00):
to do all those supplychain functions I mentioned,
and even provide the consumer
an engagement point on the product.
Because as the ubiquity ofmobile phone technology, right?
You started to see a mobilephone in every pocket,
at least, certainly, in the US,
you start to see a mobilephone in every pocket.
And then the pandemic helped
(23:21):
because you also started scanning
QR codes all over the place.
Like, nobody wants you touching anything,
so you go to a restaurant,point your phone.
So QR code adoption kind of exploded
during the pandemic.
All the while, amazing work of foresight
by some folks at GS1 to go look at 2D
before this was really even a thing.
I mean, we had to advocate, Benjy,
through some really challenging times
(23:42):
because in the US, therewas a lot of stigma
around 2D barcodes prior to the pandemic.
People were like, oh, they get spoofed
and they're not real, and, you know,
why would anyone do that?
Meanwhile, in countrieslike Columbia and China,
you had upward of 60%,80% consumer adoption
of reading QR codes.
So once again, the US is lagging behind.
(24:02):
We were lagging behindin alternative delivery
of consumables and replenishables.
- And what's the hesitation?
Is it our general conspiracy theory?
- Yes, oh my goodness.
- Spam culture?
- Yes, we should probably,
if I had a dollar forevery time someone said,
but when you scan a QRcode, isn't it tracking you?
(24:23):
I'm like, it's no different than a UPC.
All that's embedded in that code, right?
Is unique identificationabout the product.
Now, you can contextualize a scan.
This is the other thingthat's so interesting
about QR code technology, right?
You pair that with software,
whether that's phone-based software
or lot of mobile devicesin use in retail today
(24:45):
that are helping associates perform
their jobs more efficiently.
Let's go back to what Isaid at the beginning.
You gotta identify something
and capture it in a machine readable way
so you can automate.
And we've got to automate
because we can't dothings at scale in retail
if we don't automate.
So I think 2D opens that up.
Here's an example I love to give
(25:06):
maybe just very straightforward.
I was at a grocery store,
and I happened to noticein the freezer case
there was expired pizza.
Okay, very strange.
Why is there expired pizza?
Well, the little codes that are printed
on the edge of the packaging,
somebody has to go read all those
and read the expiration dates.
I mean I was justhanging out at the store,
(25:26):
I had time to do it.
The average associate probably doesn't.
But if you were to embed expiration date
in a two-dimensional barcode,
and you could equip an associate
with a mobile device, go out,
and they could just scan and basically get
a red or green,
red, pull it off the shelf,
green, leave it on the shelf,
that would expedite their process
of kind of that freshnesschecking immensely.
(25:49):
You could also utilize those dates
to do dynamic pricing.
Maybe that happens at the register.
Because now, when I scan the 2D code,
if it says, oh, the expiration date
of this one is tomorrow,
I'm gonna give you 50 centsoff, dollar, whatever,
you're actually likedriving consumer delight
in a very dynamic andsort of real time way.
Maybe I wasn't expectingthat 50 cents off,
(26:10):
but when it happened at the point of sale,
how much more pleasant wasmy trip to the grocery store?
So I think this, again,
when we talked about convergenceof 50 years ago, right?
Convergence of barcode technology
and a need in the grocery industry
around automated price lookup,
now you're talking aboutmassive use case convergence,
(26:30):
whether that has to dowith consumer engagement,
promotion, dynamic pricing,
recalls, expiration date,
all of these things,
all can be enabled through the use
of a pretty straightforward technology,
and over time, we're gonnabe able to replace that UPC,
the bars and spaces, witha two dimensional QR code
or a data matrix type code on the package
(26:53):
so you're doing a real estate swap,
which will make your brand managers happy
because then, right?
They can still use the rest
of the packaging tomake all of their claims
about how healthy products are for you.
- And like you said, the data exists,
it's already being printed on the package,
just in a less easily digestible way.
So I guess what are thenecessary steps, then,
to make this migration into 2D
(27:14):
as the standard and is that the goal?
- Yep, that is the goal.
We talk about, at GS1 US,we call it Sunrise 2027.
So as you can imagine,it seems so far away
when that was first brought up in 2018,
but time flies quickly.
So the first thing is you've gotta start
thinking about it.
(27:34):
And of course, GS1 US provides resources
to explain in more detail
some of the things I've described
around the why behind atwo dimensional barcode.
But I think, right now, itinvolves all rowing together.
We've gotta be in the same boat
pulling in the same direction,
and we've gotta decide thatwe're gonna make this move.
And there are brandsmaking this move today
(27:56):
so you gotta thank the pioneers
that are gonna be the early adopters.
You know, working in a university,
you have so many innovators.
We have to have that same thing in retail
and healthcare and food service
across all of our sectors.
They're those people thatare willing to pioneer
and go out and lead the charge for us.
But for the average company,
I would say, one, islearn from the pioneers.
(28:19):
Go and read about their stories.
There's a lot of great stories now
coming up on the internet
about what companies are doing.
And then secondly, you'vegotta embrace the idea
that it's a migrationand not a lift and shift.
So there is gonna be a time where many,
and many packages today already carry
both a QR code and a UPC barcode
because people weretesting QR codes, right?
(28:41):
for other use cases.
- Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask about
is are we gonna see 1Dand 2D technology next to,
I mean, like we have seen it, is that,
or is the idea that the 2D will replace 1D
because it will encapsulate
that information as well?
- Eventually, yes.
One of the biggest challenges
when you're dealing witheveryone from, right?
A most sophisticated,multinational retailer
(29:02):
with thousands and thousands of locations,
to a mom and pop convenience store
that's on a back road
as you're making your way kind of north
through Wyoming or Montana,
is you've got the gamut of technology.
What's really interestingis those longstanding
sort of conveniencestores, small operations
that kind of use legacypoint of sale technology.
(29:22):
For every one of those,
there are the new market entrants.
Restaurants are very commonwhere you're now seeing
a lot of the new POS devices pop up
that kind of have that native 2D scanning
already in them.
So we're working on this continuum
of trying to capturethe most sophisticated
to the least sophisticated
and push us all to a point of adoption.
So there will be a period of coexistence,
(29:43):
but eventually,
that's why we're calling it Sunrise 2027.
That's the time when youwanna be able to scan the 2D,
but probably the 1D, the UPC,
hasn't gone away at that point,
but over those next few years,
we would expect it should.
- Well, and it strikesme that the challenge
isn't necessarily the adoption of
the codes themselves because the,
(30:04):
I mean, that is a challenge,
but because they're digitally accessible
and easily to retrieve,
but not so much as the hardware,
the POS devices, and like,
I'm going to my local grocery store,
my star market, and they have a scanner
that reads a particular kind of code.
What does it mean forhundreds of their stores
and hundreds of different stores
having hundreds of stores
(30:24):
to be able to integrate that
into what they're already doing?
- One thing I do think is kind of a gift
with purchase is you can piggyback
on another use case,
and in some situations,
loyalty has been the ground breaker.
So when you think of loyalty programs
in a lot of of stores now,
you scan your QR code,that's your loyalty ID.
(30:45):
So they have 2D scanning.
It's happening in a lot
of different retailers today,
and that, when you said,
hey, have you already implemented
two dimensional scanningfor your loyalty program?
Oh yeah, well let's figure out
if we can repurposethat for point of sale.
You get the creative ideas start flowing.
So I love when,
I like to, you know,
I use all of my kind of colloquialisms,
(31:06):
but convergence, multiple use cases
is gonna be where your ROI is, right?
You don't wanna just solve one thing,
you wanna solve,
a passive checkout is another one, right?
Letting a customer checkoutwith a mobile device.
But piggybacking.
Let's jump on top of another use case
where you've maybe alreadymade the investment.
Because loyalty programs
are phenomenally appealing to retailers,
(31:27):
and if they're willing tomake hardware investments.
And a lot of times, Benjy,
actually, it's just a software upgrade.
It's actually not replacing the scanner.
Most scanners, if you'vebought it anytime,
probably in the last decade,
probably has the capability
and it's a matter of getting it turned on
if it's not already enabled.
- Well, and I was alsothinking about this situation
(31:49):
with stores that don't even have checkout.
You just walk out and scanwhat's in your bag, right?
So it's got those sort of like powerful,
of which I'm sure there are gonna be
consumer adoption issues,
maybe more in the United States
than elsewhere or vice versa
'cause of some of the issues
that you've mentioned before.
Are there brands currentlyusing 2D technology
the way that you're envisioning them?
(32:11):
- Yes, very much so.
Some stores, not in the US,
but a couple that are happening in the US,
Puma, manufacturer ofclothing, apparel, footwear,
in their flagships store in New York,
they actually implemented, so both RFID,
because RFID provides greatpassive inventory tracking,
so you can count your storelots and lots of times
(32:33):
using RFID readers
and keep an accurate count of inventory,
but they also implemented2D for consumer engagement
and they have actually,in their own retail store,
taken the UPC code off the tag.
So they are doing a combination
of two dimensional barcode and RFID,
consumer engagement, point of sale,
and inventory management.
(32:55):
Another one that we know has implemented
two dimensional barcodes
with GS1 digital link is Patagonia,
probably for the consumerengagement use case,
more so as their starting point.
And then Pepsi.
And PepsiCo has been a very big advocate
for GS1 digital link because,
frankly, you can put any URL in a QR code,
just to be clear, right?
(33:16):
I don't wanna mislead about,
the technology is the technology,
but it's about putting thatGS1 digital link syntax
which allows you to readthe unique identifier,
read the additional data,
like, perhaps the expiration date
for the point of sale operation
or for the inventory operation,
but then also, for consumer engagement.
And so Pepsi started, theyused 2D to relaunch Starry,
(33:40):
which was a rework of a,
I think their old Sierra Mist product.
They used it.
But also John Phillips,
who is the senior vice president
of customer supply chain
and go-to-market at PepsiCo,
he's been a strong advocate for 2D
on product, as well as GS1 digital link.
And he has spoken at conferences,
he's also done a video with GS1 US
(34:01):
really, again, as an outspoken proponent
of the industry movetoward this technology.
So I think there are many other examples
of companies that are implementing this,
but I think, from apublic facing perspective,
those are three that I know of
that have kind of shared their stories
for the community justto galvanize around.
(34:22):
- What are the roadblocksfor moving forward
with this or with otherplans you may have?
I'm thinking of something, like,
you may have a different phrase for this,
but the thing I'm thinking of is sort of,
is there a concern with what I would call
splitting the root
or splitting the standard where there's,
I could go to a QR code generator
and create my own QR codes
(34:43):
and use them in my own mom and pop shop
or do whatever to scan
and do whatever I wanna do there.
Are there concerns with that?
Are there other roadblocks
to moving forward andhow do you approach them?
- That use case exists in 1D world too,
because as long as you keep
the identifier within your four walls,
you probably don't see the need
for globally unique identification.
(35:04):
But as soon as you wanna branch out
and you wanna list onan internet marketplace,
or you wanna, we've had companies
who have created productswith proprietary identifiers
that we're gonna sell justdirect to consumer, right?
I'm gonna post up a website
and I'm gonna sell outta my garage.
And then as soon as they try to branch out
(35:24):
to an online listing, or we had one,
a small batch coffee roaster
that got a deal withLowe's supermarkets in,
you know, North Carolina
and had to put a UPC on there
because that's whatnationally-branded retail grocers do.
So in one sense, you've got momentum,
you've got an industry
that's scanning 10 billion barcodes a day
(35:45):
all over the world, multiple industries.
They're relying on thatglobally unique identifier
because nothing worsethan clashes that happen.
So you could go and createa unique identifier,
but there's no guaranteethat it's gonna be unique
outside your four walls without a steward
to kind of help manage that,
the application of that on a global basis.
So I've actually talked with startups,
(36:06):
and I've talked with startups
who went down theproprietary path cosmetics
and then got a deal with Sephora
and had to go and relabelall their packaging
because they scan GS1 barcodes
in their digital and physical operations.
And then I've met companies,
I met this company that was manufacturing
shelf stable soups,
but in kind of innovative packaging,
(36:28):
little more environmentally-friendly,
lots of great nutritional claims,
actually had the chanceto try one of their soups,
it was delicious.
And they came to this pitch of I was at
with GS1 barcodes on theproduct and I was like,
hey, I just have to say,
I'm pleasantly surprised.
Like, how did you know?
Well, one of our advisors used to work
(36:48):
for a big consumer package goods company
and they told us we needto go get a GS1 identifier
to put in our barcode.
Y'all might be too young for this,
but there was this Fabergecommercial in the 80s
with Heather Locklear that she would say,
you know, you'll love this product so much
that you'll tell two friends,
and she'll tell two friends,
and she'll tell two friends,
and her face just keptmultiplying on the screen
(37:09):
as you just showed thepower of word of mouth.
And that's a lot of whathappens with GS1 standards.
So I think people realize that I'm,
if I'm crossing a supply chain line,
if I'm working acrossa network of partners,
these identifiers haveto be able to stand up
to multiple reads by different parties
who have a different need to have info
(37:30):
to append info to theproduct or the location
and send it on to thenext party down the line.
Standards are the heart of that,
of that notion of uniqueness, persistence,
that guarantee that we're right.
We're not supportingduplication across networks,
that's been the big thing.
So, and I think the abilityto read that barcode
and then interpret it,
because if you're creating it randomly,
(37:52):
there's a risk of it,
it'll get to a read point
and it won't be able to read or interpret
what you've put in the barcode.
So that's really why we existas a standards org, right?
We are a not-for-profitorganization all over the world.
Our goal is really to serve
at the behest of industry,
but also, to continueto support our members
that look around the corner
(38:13):
so that we're helping companies anticipate
how technology could benefit the future
of business rather than
just kind of rest on our laurels, right?
My team spends a lot of time
investigating hype, debunkingmyths around emerging tech,
and that's probably whereall of this actually started
when you think aboutthe myths around QR code
(38:34):
that have truly evaporatedin the last few years.
Same thing happened with RFID, right?
20 years ago, somebodyhad to work their way
through all of the truthand all of the fluff
and find that true usecase in ROI for companies.
- Yeah, well, you've brought up
a really important question,
which is who's Heather Locklear?
No, I'm (indistinct) be joking,
(38:55):
We all know.
But that, I guess whatI'm thinking about is
you had mentioned GS1 as a nonprofit.
Are there other ways thatan organization, a company,
a manufacturer, or even an end consumer,
are there other reasons
why they would be interactingwith GS1 or GS1 US
to learn more, to hearabout best practices
(39:16):
for other sorts ofpartnerships or information?
- Yes.
So our primary role, right?
Is to issue unique identifiers.
And as I mentioned, we can do that by,
we actually, as I saidbefore, we issue prefixes,
we also issue identifiers in whole.
So if you're a very small company
and you're like,
look, I'm making threedifferent spice blends
that I wanna put on grocery store shelves
(39:37):
or sell on a marketplace.
You can just get three unique identifiers
from GS1 US and do that.
That would be the basic level customer.
But we also have acommunity engagement team
that works with industry partners
who want to sit around the table
and help define or articulate the problems
and define the solutions of the future.
So those are great ways to get engaged
(39:57):
here in the US or anywhereall over the world, frankly,
where also with thatsolution partner community,
sometimes you're approachingyour business saying,
I wanna grow, but I'm notsure I'm gonna need help.
I need a logistics provider,
or I need someone to helpme redesign my packaging.
And we have over ahundred solution partners
in the US alone
that can help do thosethings, even, right?
(40:19):
ERP software deployments.
And they run the gamut ofanything that has to do
with helping you improve the efficiency
of your supply chain andgrow your supply chain.
So those may be reasons to get involved.
I also, just selfishly, from my team,
we wanna pilot emerging technology.
So my team will work with
whether you're a large corporate,
whether you're a small startup,
(40:40):
we work with both end usersand technology companies
to pilot solutions, whether, you know,
those are around digital receipts,
computer vision, the useof multi-sensor technology
to drive multiple use cases.
We just completed a big project
around cold chain applications for IOT
and how you manifest themacross the supply chain.
(41:02):
Because the lovely thing about technology
is there's so much to choose from,
and the real lift is in,
can I get to the data layer
so that I can ingest that data, digest it,
and then disseminate it to the systems
and the people that needto take advantage of it
and we do all of thosekinds of things in GS1 US.
Looking across the holistic supply chain,
(41:24):
how do we find wheredata, where technology,
and where standards canintersect to solve a problem.
Whether that's a legacy problem,
so we've been chasing thingslike product traceability
for two decades withcertain core industries,
or whether that's the future,
which is to say thismove toward sensor-based,
recommerce, embedded threads in garments
(41:45):
that can actually use thatidentity for recommerce
or recycling purposes.
The notion of circularity
around plastics and product packaging,
we have teams that areworking on all those things.
We call it the circularjourney of the product.
All the parties involved,all the steps involved,
we really wanna make sure
that the standards arecovering all the needs
(42:06):
across the board.
- Well, and as you mentioned,
the integration of 2D
will enable, not justthe tracking of a product
for manufacturers or where to sold,
or for the end consumer,how much it costs,
but also enables a whole promotions
and marketing platform, which is my world,
to enable people to findout more information
(42:28):
about products or companies
or promotions or giveawaysor whatever they want.
So this one code can domany different things
for different times or people or places
or how they're read.
So I find that componentreally eye-opening.
It's been just a, you know,
a pleasure of speaking with you
and really appreciate you being here.
I guess I want to sort ofclose off an opportunity
(42:50):
to sort of talk about
what the next section oftime is gonna look like.
What four to five yearswill look like for GS1
for GS1 US, and for its partners.
- Sure.
For the core community,this Sunrise 2027 effort
and the move to implement2D broadly across retail
(43:11):
and across healthcare is significant.
So there are a lot of folks
that are heavily investedin ensuring that happens,
both inside GS1 US and rightin our member community
and our partner community.
But from an innovation lens,
one of the most exciting things
that we've been working on
is around verifiable credentials.
And this is all aboutdigital identity technology
(43:32):
and how we can actually link digital data,
cryptographically secure digital data
about products as theymove through a supply chain
to the products that are movingthrough the supply chain.
So if you think about asupply chain as three things,
there's the physical flow,
okay, we know products get to shelves
and they get to doorstepsand that's happening,
(43:52):
the magic of trade happens every day.
There's the financial supply chain
which makes sure all those people get paid
'cause nobody can make more products
if they don't get money.
And then there is thedigital supply chain.
And this is sometimes purely digital.
There's so much pure digital
that's happening today with virtual worlds
and all the purchases that you're doing
that never manifest in a physical product.
(44:14):
But then there is so much digital data
about products, and totruly unlock the power
of things like artificial intelligence
and what it brings to the table,
we've got to find waysto bind the physical
and the digital together.
And so that's a big focus
of our innovation team as well.
And we believe, I mean, it started,
it's been a five-year journey.
(44:34):
There's at least five more years
in the journey, probably more like 15.
But that notion offinding cryptographically
secure ways to link digital data
to physical products hassuch broad implications
for cross-border trade,for product claims,
the authenticity around product claims
and certifications just for assurance
(44:55):
from any party in the supply chain,
any regulator, and evenat a consumer level,
and we're utilizing technologies that,
some people call them decentralized,
I like to say distributed technologies
so that it's kind of self-evident.
I can validate somethingwith my own device,
my mobile phone, if I wish,
that doesn't rely on me goingthrough a bunch of hoops
(45:16):
and paywalls and firewallsto get to the truth.
I think this is a reallyfascinating evolution.
And, of course, something that
I know our partners atMIT have been looking at
for many years because it even applies
to things like educationalcredentials, right?
Can you prove the validity of something
through a credentialthat is self-revealing?
(45:38):
And also, can you revoke those credentials
so that there's a digital way to say, hey,
this is no longer valid information.
Very hard to do that in an analog world.
When you think about, you know,
just saying that somethingis within warranty,
or something is organic,
or something is gluten-free,
those things can change at any time,
but our paper chasing, assupply chain practitioners,
(45:58):
is not an effective way
to ensure that we're keepingthat information up-to-date
and providing consumers withan authentic experience,
that's gonna have to be done digitally.
So for us, that's really oneof the next big frontiers
that our team is also working on
in parallel with this move
to richer product information on package.
- Well, thank you.
(46:18):
Our guest today on Supply Chain Frontiers
has been Melanie Nuce-Hilton,
senior Vice President forInnovation and Partnerships
at GS1 US.
Melanie, thank you so much for joining us.
This has really been a great conversation,
and I know that so many people
will love hearing piecesof this as well, too.
- Yes, thank you. My pleasure.
- Thanks for listening to this episode
(46:38):
of MIT Supply Chain Frontiers,
presented by the MIT Center
for Transportation and Logistics.
To check out other episodes,
visit ctl.mit.edu/podcasts.
And for more on the center's research,
outreach, and education initiatives,
make sure to visit us at ctl.mit.edu.
Until next time.
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