GS1 Ukraine – 25 Years’ Experience of GTIN Certification

For 25 years, the GS1 Ukraine has been practicing the centralized assignment and certification of Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) for its Member companies.

Such process was introduced soon after establishing of GS1 Ukraine, as the response to the urgent need of introducing bar coding in retail, while Ukrainian producers and distributors had almost no experience in bar coding.

The centralized process proved to be convenient, made it possible to avoid mistakes and quickly fill the Ukrainian market with a sufficient mass of articles with fully-compliant bar codes. Also, the process allow us to collect from the brand-authorized GTIN-related information, which is especially important today, when proper GTIN identification and availability of trusted product information become critical for the future of GS1.

It’s not just about the registration of the numbers and the declared information ‘as is’, but the assessment of the conformity of GS1 identification by qualified experts. The process involves Member’s application for the new GTIN, which contains basic information about the product to be considered by the experts for compliance with the GS1 Rules.

GS1 Ukraine certifies GTIN allocation in electronic format, but paper certificate is also possible at the Member’s request.

How do we centrally manage GTINs?

GTINs are assigned to only from Member’s GCP range. We do not practice one-off GTIN allocation (e.g. without GS1 GCP, from the dedicated pool of numbers).

The GTIN Change Management process is also centralized: the electronic application is considered by our experts for compliance with the GS1 Rules.

Benefits:

Helps to prevent mistakes, especially for new Members.
Simpler and more reliable GTIN management for Members (eliminate losses of company’s data, duplication of numbers, dependence of business on a person, etc.).
General compliance with GS1 GTIN Rules in the market.
Availability of trusted product information of almost all Members products.
Ability to trace the history of a specific GTIN including minor data changes.
GTIN Compliance Confirmation for the retailers, regulators, public procurement etc.

Preventing Infringements

With our process, we stay very close to the real business and business relationships. But this world is not perfect and failure to comply with GS1 identification rules may be due to various reasons, such as:

On the manufacturer/supplier side the product is treated as the trade item not the same way as in the open trade environment.
Different requirements and understanding of unique identification from different partners.
Imaginary savings on new listings.
Situations where product changes may lead to exclusion from listing.

Our tools for preventing infringements:

GTIN status and brandowner-authorized product information available to the market (GEPIR, GS1 Cloud).
Member’s contractual GS1 compliance obligations.
Our experts monitor GTIN changes.
We reserve the right to refuse the assigning a GTIN if it will not provide unambiguous identification. We can also refuse to make minor changes in product information declared, insisting on a new GTIN.

GTIN Rules Compliance

Since the very first version of early 2000s, GTIN Management Rules is the most promoted and used document in GS1 Ukraine.

Normative framework for relations with Members in GTIN certification process.
The basis of the requirements of Ukrainian retailers to suppliers.
The Member’s obligation to comply with the rules follows from the standard membership contract.
Experts are basing their work on GTIN Management Rules, as well as on sectoral GS1 Standards.
For our process, the previous GTIN Allocation Rules had many benefits.
Focus when working with Members – to explain GS1 rules in terms of business processes in an open trade environment.

Sector Specifics

Our process is flexible and allows us to make the proper proposition to members taking into account their industry specifics.

Healthcare

Regulat
Ory requirements for GTINs on secondary packages since 1998.
Requirements for product information as defined by regulatory authorities.
A meticulous attitude towards identification.
GTIN Certification plays a special role.
Work with the regulators, participation in projects for introduction of traceability of medicines.

Textile and apparel

Simplified registration and quick processing of large lists of items.
Active market activity (promotion of GS1 standards at sectoral events, individual work with members).
Engagement with the industry associationsюns.

DIY and industrial applications

Promoting the benefits of GS1 identification versus internal or proprietary solutions.
Individual approach to take into account the Member’s industrial features.
Adaptive procedures for registration and processing a large number of GTINs.

GS1 Identification Experts

Our GTIN Management and Certification services are supported by a team of skilled, professionally educated experts with real life experience in retail and huge practical experience in trade item identification.

Understanding of business processes in the supply chain.
Knowledge of industrial and sectoral regulatory requirements.
Any decision should be based on GS1 Rules and regulations (if any).
Communication skills for effective consultation to Members.

Our expertise is limited solely to GS1 unique identification. We do not assume any functions that are not specific to the GS1 MO such as compliance of products with the regulatory, the use of trademarks, etc!

Secure Management of Member Information

When GS1 MO is involved in managing of Member’s GTINs, it faces the fact that GS1 numbers are assigned before the goods are actually announced to partners, and the business may not want to make this information publicly available for a certain time. The trust of Members to GS1 MO is crucial for the success of such cooperation, and we take the treatment of members’ confidential information exceptionally serious, providing the necessary organizational and technical guarantees.

As per our legislation, not all GTIN-related information can be confidential.

GTIN status/validity information is always public.
Information about the GTIN owner is public, but there may be exceptions (e.g., a private entrepreneur who is not a Member anymore).
Product Information – the public status is determined solely by the brand owner.
Information about Member’s employees is a subject of the legislation on the personal data protection.

To ensure that brand owner will have no doubts when providing his sensitive product, GS1 Ukraine has introduced a series of technical and organizational measures:

Very strict requirements for the protection of commercial information in the organization.
Technical measures for information protection in the database.
Member should always indicate the status of public availability of information when applying for a new GTIN.
Several statuses for GTIN data public availability in our database. For example, a Member may specify the date from which the information about his item line should become publicly available.
Advanced control of public status in our systems for synchronization with external data services (GEPIR, GS1 Cloud, etc.).
We never ask members why some of their products are declared as non-public.

Interactions with Members

Reliable, fast, secure, and simple communications are critical for a GS1 MO taking a significant part of responsibility to manage its members’ GTINs.

Our system evolved two and a half decades. Today we provide for our Members on-line:

Conclusion of a membership contract.
Changing the terms of the membership contract.
Detailed information on all GS1 numbers (GCPs, GTINs, GLNs) ever assigned to a Member.
The submission of applications for new GTINs either through the web interface or by bulk uploading from the file.
Real-time information about all the actions of our experts, questions / recommendations from experts if any.
Detailed financial information for each transaction (membership fees) for the entire membership period.
Advanced search in the array of member’s own product/location information.
Ability to create and export custom extracts and lists of Member’s GTINs.