| Marlow GTIN - again |
|
|
|
| Written by Marlow Atticus | |
| Monday, 12 May 2008 | |
|
As I work with buying organizations I always wondered why there is nothing standard about how companies report various item part numbers when transmitting EDI documents. In the retail industry, some have
Nearly every retailer assigns an item number within their item master file, why not send that number, especially when there is requirement to have the Buyer Part number as part of Carton markings or part of the Shipping label. As for Vendor item numbers or the UPC number, again, nearly every supplier assigns a part number within their item master file, however not every supplier assigns or registers the items to get the UPC number. So why not always send the vendor part number, and have that as the second of the groupings of item numbers. Doing that would establish a standard, and wouldn’t it be cool if we did the same for the return transactions that retailers ask for. As a retailer, I’d recommend that if your not going to standardize your sending of part numbers, at least allow suppliers to return any of the “best practice” part numbers in any of the part number groupings on the ASN, invoices etc. This allows the suppliers to reuse an existing map to comply with any retailer's EDI requirements. Hats off to many sporting goods retailers for collaborate with their suppliers, and are doing exactly that. Since we’re on part numbers, whatever happened to the push of GTIN’s? Sunrise 2005 was supposed to be the event that was going to get all companies moving toward sending up to 14 digit Global Location item numbers. There was a lot of “hoopla” that resulted in a “non-event”. Many, many of the retailers and suppliers that I have worked with during that event and still now, had started down that path yet never got to complete the effort. The big players were able to push some of their suppliers to do strictly 14 digit GTIN’s, however neglected to get a consensus from their trading partner’s ability or willingness to support that event. I remember working with Nike on a project for switching to 14 digits GTIN’s a few years ago. They were convinced that GTIN was the wave and that everyone was going to finally get going. Yet after starting the project, realized that they would need to support both 12 digit Consumer UPC, and 14 digit GTIN as only 30% of the Retailers where actually ready. I was involved in another GTIN project with Pacific Sunwear a year and a half ago when they to got the impression that all of their suppliers were moving to 14 digit GTIN’s. They too started down the path, but later came to the understanding that they would need to support both the old and the new way. I bring up GTIN as there appears to be a push again with the migration to version 5010 and higher. Just want to warn any company that is trying this again, they should be prepared that not all companies are GTIN ready even now. Make sure that you ask your trading partners on the status of their GTIN capabilities. Till next time, let me know what you're working on. Marlow | |
|
|