Using EPCIS and CBV to Improve Customer Experience

Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) and Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) play a vital role in ensuring end-to-end visibility and traceability of supply chain processes. By using these standards, businesses can improve customer experience by ensuring consistency, accuracy, and transparency throughout the product lifecycle.

In this blog post, we will dive deep into EPCIS and CBV, their benefits, and how they can be used together to enhance the customer experience.

Understanding EPCIS

EPCIS is a global GS1 standard for sharing real-time information about the movement and status of products as they move through the supply chain. The EPCIS standard defines a set of events that can be used to track and trace products, including when they were shipped, received, and sold. This information is critical for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, as it allows them to track their products' journeys and monitor them for quality and regulatory compliance.

EPCIS defines four types of events:

• Object events: These events track specific items, such as products or cases, as they move through the supply chain.
• Aggregation events: These events track groups of items, such as pallets or containers.
• Transformation events: These events track changes to an item or group of items, such as when a product is relabeled.
• Association events: These events track the relationships between different items, such as a product's components or ingredients.

EPCIS allows businesses to share this event data with other stakeholders in the supply chain, such as suppliers, customers, and regulators. This visibility and traceability enable collaboration and rapid response to supply chain disruptions, ultimately leading to better customer experiences.

Understanding CBV

CBV is a subset of EPCIS that focuses on creating a common vocabulary for describing business transactions. CBV defines a specific set of terms and concepts that businesses can use to communicate with each other in a standardized way. This standardization ensures that everyone is using the same language, which reduces errors and simplifies communication.

CBV defines four primary concepts:

• Business transaction: A unit of economic activity that takes place between one or more parties.
• Business transaction event: A specific activity that takes place during a business transaction, such as an order being placed or a delivery being made.
• Business transaction document: The digital or physical document that contains all the information about a business transaction.
• Business transaction party: The person or organization that participates in a business transaction, such as a buyer or a seller.

Using CBV, businesses can create more accurate and efficient business transactions. This precision and consistency greatly enhance the customer experience, as it ensures that orders are fulfilled quickly, accurately, and without errors.

Improving the Customer Experience with EPCIS and CBV

EPCIS and CBV can be used together to create a high level of end-to-end visibility and traceability in supply chain processes. This visibility and traceability allow businesses to proactively identify and solve problems, reducing the potential for disruptions that could impact the customer experience.

For example, a retailer can use EPCIS to track the journey of a product from the manufacturer to the store shelf. They can use CBV to communicate with the manufacturer about the details of the product, such as its size and color, ensuring that it is the correct item that customers want to purchase. If there is an issue with the shipment or the product, EPCIS and CBV enable swift remediation between the retailer and the manufacturer to resolve issues without negatively impacting the customer experience.

Additionally, businesses can use EPCIS and CBV to improve the speed and accuracy of order fulfillment. By sharing real-time information with suppliers and manufacturers, businesses can ensure that orders are accurately filled, shipped, and delivered on time. This precision and speed create seamless order experiences for customers, significantly enhancing their satisfaction.

The Future of EPCIS and CBV

EPCIS and CBV are fundamental components of next-generation supply chain management. As the global supply chain becomes more complex and sophisticated, these standards will become increasingly important for ensuring end-to-end visibility, traceability, and accuracy.

In the future, these standards will play an essential role in enabling innovations, such as blockchain and the internet of things (IoT). EPCIS and CBV will create a foundation of standardized data that can be shared across the supply chain, enabling secure and transparent transactions between all stakeholders. This standardization will pave the way for more robust supply chains, better customer experiences, and more significant business opportunities overall.

Conclusion

EPCIS and CBV are fundamental standards for achieving end-to-end visibility, traceability, and consistency in global supply chains. By using these standards, businesses can improve customer experiences by ensuring accuracy, precision, and real-time communication across the supply chain.

As the global supply chain becomes more complex and sophisticated, the importance of EPCIS and CBV will continue to grow. Businesses that embrace these standards will be better positioned to compete in the global marketplace, offering their customers the best possible experience.