GS1's Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard is known primarily for its ability to enable trading partners to securely exchange information regarding the location of products in the supply chain. Less known is that EPCIS was also designed to let different business units within a company share information. Few companies take advantage of this aspect of the standard, but they should. It helps structure RFID data so the data can be used for many business purposes.
…EPCIS solves this problem by providing a standard data model that all current—and future—applications can use. The data-capture hardware and software in the plant converts tagreads into EPCIS events, based on the EPCIS standard data model of "what," "when," "where" and "why." The "where" and "why" are what differentiate EPCIS events from rawRFID tag reads. The "where" dimension includes detailed location information, which the plant and asset managers need for their applications. The "why" dimension indicates what process step is being carried out, which the plant and customer managers need, but is less important to the asset manager. The "why" dimension also contains links to client orders, critical information for the customer manager.
