EAN Ireland launches industry group

EAN Ireland, the local body responsible for the promotion of global standards related to the use of bar coding, scanning and electronic messaging, has announced the launch of an FMCG industry group which will seek to research, source and adopt the most appropriate solutions to enable the industry to benefit from the concept of "shared data pools" in Ireland.

The industry grouping, which is being facilitated by EAN Ireland, comprises of representatives from a selection of leading retailers, distributors and suppliers.

Commenting on the formation of the working group, Jim Bracken, director, EAN Ireland said: "The industry has long been dogged by the delays, costs and inefficiencies of inaccurate and missing data and a concerted effort to tackle this issue once and for all is now timely, required and very much welcomed.

" Indeed industry players agree that problem data is the one major obstacle to moving forward with other progressive eCommerce plans."

The concept of a "data pool" relates to a central repository for product and company data. Typically, the data pool consists of information that remains unchanged such as a product's description, size, colour etc.

The Global Commerce Initiative (CGI) vision for global data synchronisation, endorsed by EAN International, is an interconnected network of data pools across the globe. EAN Ireland is actively promoting the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN).

One of the first tasks set for the newly established Data Pool Working Group is to evaluate a number of data pool providers, both local and international.

A presentation session has been organised for Tuesday, September 21 at 10am in the Burlington Hotel. Any EAN Ireland member interested in attending or obtaining more information about data pools is asked to contact Maria Svejdar on 01 605 1534 or email: [e-mail].