How Standardized Bar Codes Can Make Supply Chains More Transparent.

Greater use of bar codes can make global supply chains more robust and enhance the ability to verify social and environmental standards.

It seems as if these stripes of coded messages, and their upgraded offspring the square blotches of information known as QR codes (for “quick response”) and the tiny radio devices known as RFIDs (radio frequency identification), are virtually everywhere. Still, there is a need for the technology to reach even further and improve global supply chains in the process.

Greater use of this 48-year-old system of identification standards would help make global supply chains more environmentally and socially sustainable, improve safety and security for key goods like food and medicine and generally make trade more efficient, sustainable and inclusive.

A beep in 1974 signaled the arrival of the technology when a bar-coded package of chewing gum became the first item to be scanned in a store. Now the non-profit global organization in charge of the standards that make the technology possible, known as GS1, is joining with governments and multinational organizations to spread its use throughout global supply chains and make the information contained in bar codes more accessible.

There is an urgent need to make global supply chains more transparent. Without a clear understanding of supply chains, and without the ability to map every component part of the production and distribution process, the public and private sectors cannot identify and address bottlenecks that impede the efficient production and delivery of critical goods. Nor can environmental and labor standards be properly monitored without more and better information.

Greater use of a unified system to identify goods would help to fix that.

GS1 has more than a million organizations as its members. It operates in more than 100 countries, ensuring that the systems used by retailers, manufacturers and throughout supply chains can be understood by everyone in the system, using common standards and methods.

It is easy to see how a common standard adopted throughout a supply chain can help retailers and manufacturers understand important questions about their operations. That’s why 150 million products are now registered through its global systems.

Given their ubiquity, the success of the GS1 standards in many supply chains is obvious. But gaps in the use of its standards remain. Making those standards even more widespread can drive transparency through supply chains to facilitate verification and monitoring of environmental standards.

One area which could benefit from greater use of these global standards is food safety and security. There is a growing need for better information on food products, whether for consumers, governments and regulators or for food processors further along the supply chain. Everyone wants more information on how, where and when their food is produced, whether farmers used sustainable methods and if workers were adequately compensated.