Knowing how we could incorporate possible transhipment points in your suppy chain network calculations to speed up, pool risk to lower inventory cost and postponing customization isn't enough.
There growing need for track and track for sub-components of a finished project for patient/food/consumer safety. As such, there is an increasing need to add in more information on top of current product bar codes.
Besides tracking and tracing, the additional plant and production/expiry date/time information of sub-components can also be used to measure supply chain velocity, quality and costs.
So the question is, how do we add in more information from say, a transshipment hub like Singapore?
How about using EAN 128, or GS1 128 bar codes? It has SSCC, GTIN, Country Of Origin, Best Before etc... even optional fields you can define. It's open standards ensures interoperability worried about the length of bar codes to scan? You can use a QR code to store much more information in a smaller space. QR code specification is free and there are tonnes of free QR code generators around, including a Google API for QR. Multiple products on 1 QR code? No problem, we just need to configure the reader to consider it as separate product if 00,01 and 02 application identifiers are read, as these application identifiers will have unique company prefix.
You can use my web application at www.transhipmentflow.appspot.com to decode your EAN 128 or GS1 128 bar codes into its application identifiers and know how much more information you can add if you convert to using QR codes.
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