Relevant Standards

Providing the foundation for efficient supply chain management

For more than 35 years, the GS1 System of global supply chain standards has revolutionized efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness in a broad range of industries, including the apparel industry. GS1 Standards, like identification numbers, provide a “common language” that allows companies and their trading partners to identify items at any point along the supply chain.

GS1 Standards for the apparel industry include:

• Global Trade Item Numbers® (GTINs®) – Identify products, inner packs, cases, and pallets
• Global Location Numbers (GLNs) – Identify locations (e.g., such as place of delivery, point of storage, etc.) and can be used as a reference to retrieve information from databases
• Serial Shipping Container Codes (SSCCs) – Identify logistics units, such as cases, cartons, pallets, or air cargo containers of trade items
• Electronic Product Codes (EPCs) – The “common language” based on GS1 Standards that allows GTINs, GLNs, and SSCCs to be carried on a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, and is compatible with ERP, inventory management, point-of-sale and other enterprise systems. To view up-to-date EPCglobal standards, visit the EPCglobal Inc Standards website.

GS1 System Data Carriers

GS1 System Data Carriers enable companies to capture standardized data–such as a specific item in the supply chain–using barcodes or EPC-enabled RFID tags.

To encourage standardization in the apparel industry supply chain and help apparel companies implement the right technology the right way to achieve their business goals, GS1 US has created the EPC Item Level Readiness Program.