“Electronic business (or e-business) needs a way to capture the business requirements independently of hardware platforms, operating systems, software packages, network services, and even markup languages. To get complex systems in different companies and even in different industries to talk to each other, as well as building a capability to handle future business coming from platforms as yet undetermined, means using technology independent business models to connect businesses to businesses.

The EAN.UCC system has been developed to meet this need by providing solutions that guarantees unique and unambiguous identification. Manufacturers, exporters, importers, hospitals, wholesalers, retailers, etc. can use the system to communicate information regarding the goods or services they trade.

These unique identification numbers can be represented by bar code symbols. This enables inexpensive and accurate data capture thus providing the required information at all points of the supply chain.”

Go to (http://www.ean-int.org/index800.html) for more details.

The GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) numbering schema was generated to support international, standard product/service identification and bar coding. The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC) provides this GTIN for product identification and bar codes. These standards encompass machine-readable representation. The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC) and EAN International (European Article Numbering) jointly manage the GTIN EAN-UCC system.

The EAN/UCC-14 format will be used for RosettaNet's commodity part identification. GTIN’s will be uniquely assigned to an orderable part number with its packaging. The same orderable part number in two different packages—IC'S shipped on reels or shipped in tubes as an example—will have two separate GTIN’s.

The 8 digits of the format are generated and controlled by EAN/UCC. The individual manufacturer controls the 5-digits commodity code. If more digits are required for product than the 100,000 combinations, then EAN/UCC will assign another 8-digit manufacturer’s code. Another 100,000 commodity codes when then are available for more product identification.

The following is a breakdown of the GTIN numbering schema: