Pharma White Paper

GTIN (Global Trade Item Number)

Case Code Assignment Strategy

The following is a strategy recommended by the Produce Traceability Initiative for produce companies to assign GTIN numbers at the case level. It is important that you read this in its entirety, and then ensure understanding. Most likely, your IT staff will initially have a better understanding of this; however, it is important for the business people (salesmen and buyers) to also understand this strategy because it will affect what numbers you place orders with, send invoices with and use as a reference when discussing traceability issues. The examples used are fairly simple to allow for clarity and understanding of the basic concept. If you follow the basic concept of this strategy, it should address the majority of your products. Please note, however, that as with most strategies, it does not address every situation or exception that arises. As is the situation today, you have to plan for exceptions and this strategy offers a method to deal with these as well. The ultimate goal of this strategy is to minimize the exceptions not covered by this strategy; thus, minimizing the work to handle these exceptions.

Assumptions for Example A

A GTIN number used on a case is 14 digits long (see example below) - The first digit is the packaging indicator, which in this example and for simplicity, will be a “1”. - The second digit in this GTIN is a ”0”, which simply put, turns a UPC Company Prefix into a GS1 Company Prefix and is necessary for use within a GTIN. - The supplier in this example was issued a 6-digit UPC Company Prefix=123456 - Because of this supplier having a 6-digit UPC Company Prefix, the supplier has 5 digits left over to assign a case reference # for that product - The last digit is a single digit “check digit”

Example A:

Comp Prefix 1 + 0 + 123456 +

Case Ref # 00001

Check Digit + 3 = 14 digits

Putting these pieces together you get one 14-digit GTIN: 10123456000013

Buyer...