Electronic Product Code Information Services Research Articles

Framework for smart contract blockchain in halal traceability, integrity, and transparency

Currently, the halalness of a product may only be determined by the halal certificate or halal label displayed on the product packaging. Simply put, several halal-related issues, like cross-contamination, logistical issues, halal counterfeiting, global halal acceptance, and so forth, keep coming up. To address the numerous issues raised above, it is believed that a framework that can support worldwide halal provisions is necessary. The objective of this research is to create a blockchain smart contract framework for halal transparency, integrity, and traceability. Blockchain technology along with smart contracts can solve classic tracing problems including data leakage, manipulation, and invisible data. Organizational consistency across the halal production process and the availability of raw materials that adhere to sharia laws are two more basic challenges with halal certification that blockchain and smart contracts can resolve. The usual traceability problems, such as data explosion, material cross-contamination between halal and haram, and revelation of private information, can all be resolved by smart contracts that make use of on-chain, off-chain, and electronic product code information services (EPCIS).

A Blockchain-Based Product Traceability System with Off-Chain EPCIS and IoT Device Authentication.

Blockchain-based traceability systems are a promising approach because they are decentralized, transparent, and tamper proof; however, if all traceability data are uploaded to a blockchain platform, it may affect the efficiency or even lead to data explosion. Additionally, it is difficult to guarantee the reliability of the original data source of massive Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Furthermore, when different enterprise nodes adopt different data storage structures, the costs that are associated with data sharing will increase. In this paper, we have proposed a trustworthy product traceability system that is based on hyperledger fabric and Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS), which is not only capable of making products traceable, but it can also authenticate and authorize the IoT devices that are used for data collection. First, we adopted the on-chain and off-chain collaborative management mechanism in order to alleviate data explosion on the chain. Second, we proposed a scheme to authenticate and authorize devices based on blockchain. Third, we complied with EPCIS and Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) standards and provided the EPCIS location discovery service in order to improve the interactivity. Finally, we implemented and tested the proposed traceability system and compared it with the existing research. The proposed solution provides product information traceability, data tamper proofing, data confidentiality, and data source reliability.

Pharmaceutical Serialization : A Challenge for Small Manufacturers

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the Challenges faced by Small Manufacturers due to the Serialization compliance. Pharmaceutical serialization is the process of assigning unique serial number to each saleable product pack. Each product pack contains information about product source, Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN), Batch number, Expiry date and unique serial number. Pharmaceutical serialization is not new compliance, and it was initially introduced by Turkey in 2010, and other market such as the China and South Korea. Since many years China made compulsory for all supply chain partners to record drug distribution information of individuals drugs units in a traceability system. As we are approaching to 2023, It will be final phase of 10 yearlong implementation of Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) since compliance enacted in 2013. Verification router services (Saleable Return) is another compliance which was scheduled to enforce on 2020 but it is now push back to 2023 due to Covid-19 impact. Under 2023 DSCSA Act, manufacturers need to provide product tracing information in secure and interoperable manner electronically to distributors and wholesaler in supply chain. Wholesaler must transfer product tracing information to dispensers and pharmacy and verify saleable returns receive from supply chain stakeholders. Dispenser/Pharmacy should be able to receive Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) and product tracing information electronically and to be able to reconcile physical product unique identifier with electronic records. Finally, everyone in supply chain must be connected electronically through interoperable network which will allow regulatory bodies to track and trace the information’s. The importance of drug traceability has been increasingly emphasized and mandated by several countries across the world. The Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) has been working on a pilot project with big pharmaceutical companies, wholesalers and distributors to design and test interoperable network to trace pharmaceutical prescribed drug electronically at package level. This will help supply chain stakeholders to verify the authenticity of drug in United States.

Supply Chain Security Act 2023 : Interoperable Data Exchange for Drug Traceability

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the requirements of the 2023 DSCSA Act. recommended by HDA. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) has outlined the guidelines to develop and enhance drug supply chain security act by 2023. This includes product tracing requirements that went into effect in 2015 for manufacturers, re-packagers, wholesale distributors and dispensers (primarily pharmacies) [1]. As we are approaching to 2023, It will be final phase of 10 yearlong implementation of Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) since compliance enacted in 2013. Verification router services (Saleable Return) is another compliance which was scheduled to enforce on 2020 but it is now push back to 2023 due to Covid-19 impact. Under 2023 DSCSA Act, manufacturers need to provide product tracing information in secure and interoperable manner electronically to distributors and wholesaler in supply chain. Wholesaler must transfer product tracing information to dispensers and pharmacy and verify saleable returns receive from supply chain stakeholders. Dispenser/Pharmacy should be able to receive Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) and product tracing information electronically and to be able to reconcile physical product unique identifier with electronic records. Finally, everyone in supply chain must be connected electronically through interoperable network which will allow regulatory bodies to track and trace the information’s. DSCSA 2023 Act is very impactful regulation which also requires supply chain partners to exchange traceability information’s such as Transaction History (TH), Transaction Information (TI), and Transaction Statement (TS) electronically. Electronic product Code Information Services (EPCIS) version 1.2 will have all provisions of TH, TI, TS, and adaptation of EPCIS version 1.2 will fulfill the requirement for all stakeholders in supply chain.

From catch to plate

From catch to plate

Towards Interoperability of Entity-Based and Event-Based IoT Platforms: The Case of NGSI and EPCIS Standards

With the advancement of IoT devices and thanks to the unprecedented visibility and transparency they provide, diverse IoT-based applications are being developed. With the proliferation of IoT, both the amount and type of data items captured have increased dramatically. The data generated by IoT devices reside in different organizations and systems, and a major barrier to utilizing the data is the lack of interoperability among the standards used to capture the data. To reduce this barrier, two major standards have emerged: the Global Standards One (GS1) Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) and the FIWARE Next Generation Services Interface (NGSI). However, the two standards differ not only in the data encoding but also in the underlying philosophy of representing IoT data; namely, EPCIS is event-based, and NGSI is entity-based. Interoperability between FIWARE and EPCIS is essential for system integration. This paper presents OLIOT Mediation Gateway, now one of the incubated generic enablers offered by the FIWARE Foundation, that realizes the required interoperability between NGSI and EPCIS systems. It also demonstrates the applicability and feasibility of the Gateway by applying it to a real-life case study of integrating transparency systems used in a meat supply chain.

Object traceability graph: Applying temporal graph traversals for efficient object traceability

EPC Information Services (EPCIS) is a de-facto standard for information systems for object traceability. Expert and intelligent systems complying with the standard reap benefits from its global interoperability, and thus every application can easily retrieve track and trace information of everyday-objects in an identical manner. However, existing systems are bound to go through scalability issues due to inevitable recursive queries because users are required to handle multiple transformation and aggregation of the objects instead of the systems. In the article, we propose an enhanced EPCIS system called Object Traceability Graph (OTG). The system applies a technique, temporal graph traversal, to resolve the issues. With the system, applications do not need to request recursive queries on their side. Instead, applications are able to represent their ad-hoc traceability queries in a single statement provided by the system. Then, the statement is interpreted and efficiently processed on the system side. In our evaluation, it is shown that our approach enhances the scalability of EPCIS systems by reducing the number of queries and the amount of data transmission. The proposed approach can be applied to existing expert and intelligent systems. Furthermore, we believe that an additional interface, abstracting our approach, is general enough to be included in the standard.

Interacting with a Digital Twin using Amazon Alexa

The Digital Twin is an evolving concept with many facets and applications in, for instance, engineering simulation, system control, and product-centric information management. This article focuses on the latter where literature uses the Product Avatar concept to refer to a product’s digital counterpart. Such an avatar used to have one or more graphical interfaces to support user interactions with information about a product item. Over the last few years, voice user interfaces became more mature, and companies, such as Amazon and Google, used them to create digital assistants that support their users during tasks or by taking them over directly. This paper focuses on the hypothesis that a company could use a voice-enabled digital assistant to interact with item-level information. Our study used product tracking and tracing, and quality control in the production as a realistic application case. The design of the assistant bases on the information needs outlined in the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard. We implemented this design in a small-scale demonstrator on an Echo Show 5 smart speaker with an integrated touch display and an embedded Amazon Alexa assistant. This paper concludes that significant technological barriers, such as low transcription accuracy for object identifier information and the handling of factory noise, remain. A significant non-technological barrier is the mistrust regarding the closed voice assistant technologies from companies, such as Amazon and Google. An approach to address the latter barrier is to use open technologies, such as the privacy-focused assistant Mycroft or Mozilla’s transcription solution DeepSpeech. Further research and experiments with these technologies are useful to identify how they can support the interaction with Digital Twins.

Food Safety Traceability System Based on Blockchain and EPCIS

In recent years, food safety issues have drawn growing concerns from society. In order to efficiently detect and prevent food safety problems and trace the accountability, building a reliable traceability system is indispensable. It is especially essential to accurately record, share, and trace the specific data within the whole food supply chain, including the process of production, processing, warehousing, transportation, and retail. The traditional traceability systems have issues, such as data invisibility, tampering, and sensitive information disclosure. The blockchain is a promising technology for the food safety traceability system because of the characteristics, such as the irreversible time vector, smart contract, and consensus algorithm. This paper proposes a food safety traceability system based on the blockchain and the EPC Information Services and develops a prototype system. The management architecture of on-chain & off-chain data is proposed as well, through which the traceability system can alleviate the data explosion issue of the blockchain for the Internet of Things. Furthermore, the enterprise-level smart contract is designed to prevent data tampering and sensitive information disclosure during information interaction among participants. The prototype system was implemented based on the Ethereum. According to the test results, the average time of information query response is around 2 ms, while the amount of on-chain data and query counts are 1 GB and 1000 times/s, respectively.

Sharing Sensor Based Quality Data in Automotive Supply Chain Processes

In current supply chains (SC), many process steps are not yet being monitored for proper quality. Adding product and process quality supervision can improve supply chain performance by reducing production loss and emergency transports. Due to its globally distributed supply chains, the automotive industry, in particular, offers many opportunities for application of quality supervision. This paper describes an approach for integrating sensor based quality data into supply chain management (SCM). It outlines the structure of a supply chain event management (SCEM) system that includes mobile and stationary sensors, data repositories and software services. In addition, it shows how to enhance the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) communication standard in order to share sensor based quality data. In this context, the paper describes the necessary additions to the standard and provides an example how these may be used.

Oliot EPCIS: Engineering a web information system complying with EPC Information Services standard towards the Internet of Things

A global standard, Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS), standardizes ways to capture and share crucial moments in a lifecycle of physical objects. EPCIS has the possibility of becoming a viable standard for a web information system of the Internet of Things (IoT) because EPCIS is a de facto standard for Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology and be flexible enough to manage various sensor data in IoT environments. However, an EPCIS system should become efficient and scalable enough to deal with billions of physical objects. In the paper, we share our three-year experience developing an open source, Oliot EPCIS. The experience in several research projects leads to the continuously refined architecture as well as our extra features for efficiency and scalability. According to the experiments, Oliot EPCIS is more efficient and scalable than existing open source solutions. Also, our discussion of the results shows a user the appropriate way to use Oliot EPCIS in one's own application domain.

RESTful economic-ADS model for cost-effective chain-wide traceability system-based cloud computing

Chain-wide traceability systems conforming to the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard which is a well-recognized global standard allow supply chain operators to digitally capture and directly access the traceability data within and across enterprises. Although recent studies proposed the cloud-based deployment of EPCIS-based traceability systems by which supply chain operators are likely to save their investment cost in IT infrastructure, resource utilization remains a major concern in cloud-based deployment and those systems are required to deliver optimal performance. In this research, we propose the RESTful Economic-Aggregating Discovery Service (RECO-ADS) model to improve the cost effectiveness of resource use of the EPCIS system, which runs in the cloud. In the proposed model, we select the ADS model as the query traceability data approach. We design the internal and centralized traceability systems to comply with the EPCIS specification and Electronic Product Code Discovery Service (EPCDS) deployed to the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud business model. Moreover, we integrate the RESTful web service with the Interfaces of EPCIS and EPCDS traceability systems. The evaluation criteria to measure resource efficiency, including computing resources, data transfers, and response time, are provided. The RECO-ADS is compared with the conventional traceability models, Directory Service (DS), Query Relay (QR) and Aggregating Discovery Service (ADS), using the evaluation criteria. The comparison shows that the computing resources, which consist of the CPU and Memory percentages of EPCIS and EPCDS systems, are rather similar, whereas the total data transfer (kB/s) of RECO-ADS (661.97) was less than that of the DS (807.73), QR (794.80) and ADS (796.66) models by approximately 18.05%, 16.71%, and 16.91%, respectively. The response time of the RECO-ADS model was the shortest. Moreover, the design of the cache in the EPCDS repository in the RECO-ADS model yielded a reduced operational cost based on the performance evaluation. These findings improve on the cost-effective resource consumption in the IaaS cloud of not only the EPCIS system but also the EPCDS system.

Efficient and privacy-enhanced object traceability based on unified and linked EPCIS events

EPC Information Service (EPCIS) is a de-facto standard for visibility event/master data in supply chains, and the standard is widely known as a key solution to achieve object traceability. Despite its expressive power, this information service is prone to make application developers write queries redundantly and recursively, especially in distributed environments; additionally, it is hard for business partners to protect sensitive business contexts in each object level due to its event-oriented persistence approach. Therefore, we propose a graph-oriented persistence approach for the visibility data to achieve efficient and privacy-enhanced object traceability based on unified and linked EPCIS events.

Towards a standardised information exchange within finished vehicle logistics based on RFID and EPCIS

Finished vehicle logistics is facing different challenges. In order to cope with these challenges this article presents a case study, analysing a concept to improve finished vehicle logistics using radio frequency identification (RFID)-based and electronic product code information services (EPCIS). Within this case study, vehicles were identified automatically by RFID. For sharing, the information generated by RFID the EPCIS-based InfoBroker was developed according to the needs of the automotive industry. By having data available through the InfoBroker, decision support systems (DSS) can make planning and control of finished vehicle logistics decisions more efficiently. The case study was executed within two finished vehicle logistics cases. Based on this article practitioners can estimate the potentials of RFID and EPCIS for finished vehicle logistics. Based on the data made accessible by the presented concept practitioners and researches can develop innovative DSS to improve finished vehicle logistics

Information sharing in supply chain of agricultural products based on the Internet of Things

Purpose – The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the efficient ways to solve the problems on information sharing in the supply chain of agricultural products. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, a scheme of information sharing in the supply chain of agricultural products is developed and the information of agricultural products is designed and described with Physical Markup Language. Findings – In addition, the EPC Information Services (EPCIS) system of agricultural products is analyzed and designed, and the design of tracking and tracing of the agricultural supply chain based on the IoT is proposed. Meanwhile, EPCDS registration is discussed, and two methods of information inquiry are proposed, especially the processes of inquiries for the static and dynamic information based on Object Name Service are emphasized. Originality/value – Once a food safety incident occurs, the model can be used for tracking, tracing, and monitoring so as to deal with related pro...

Logistic management of trailers based on the EPCIS standard: A cross-case analysis

The efficient management of logistic operations at port terminals is vital in developing global competition and trade and distributing cargo across geographical borders. The application of standardized approaches improves the efficiency of logistic operations. This paper presents a conceptual framework based on the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard for analyzing the efficiency of logistic operations at port terminals. The paper contributes to logistics research by studying time efficiency in the management of trailers and cargo at terminals based on the adoption of the international EPCIS standard. The literature was reviewed to establish a conceptual framework and a case study was then conducted regarding time efficiency in managing the export and import of trailers and transshipments of cargo between trailers at two port terminals in the United Kingdom and one port terminal in the Netherlands. The findings show that by adopting the EPCIS standard, port operators can improve logistic management efficiency, including the arriving, transporting, receiving, inspecting, outbound staging, loading, picking-up, unloading, re-packing, and shipping operations of trailers. This paper identifies how, when managing trailers at port terminals, applying a conceptual framework based on an international standard can improve logistical efficiency so that this management is consistent with the development of a global standard used to enhance planning, traceability, and safety in the port sector.

MongoDB-Based Repository Design for IoT-Generated RFID/Sensor Big Data

Internet of Things (IoT)-generated data are characterized by its continuous generation, large amount, and unstructured format. The existing relational database technologies are inadequate to handle such IoT-generated data due to the limited processing speed and the significant storage-expansion cost. Thus, big data processing technologies, which are normally based on distributed file systems, distributed database management, and parallel processing technologies, have arisen as a core technology to implement IoT-generated data repositories. In this paper, we propose a sensor-integrated radio frequency identification (RFID) data repository-implementation model using MongoDB, the most popular big data-savvy document-oriented database system now. First, we devise a data repository schema that can effectively integrate and store the heterogeneous IoT data sources, such as RFID, sensor, and GPS, by extending the event data types in electronic product code information services standard, a de facto standard for the information exchange services for RFID-based traceability. Second, we propose an effective shard key to maximize query speed and uniform data distribution over data servers. Last, through a series of experiments measuring query speed and the level of data distribution, we show that the proposed design strategy, which is based on horizontal data partitioning and a compound shard key, is effective and efficient for the IoT-generated RFID/sensor big data.

Modeling and Implementation of Cattle/Beef Supply Chain Traceability Using a Distributed RFID-Based Framework in China.

In recent years, traceability systems have been developed as effective tools for improving the transparency of supply chains, thereby guaranteeing the quality and safety of food products. In this study, we proposed a cattle/beef supply chain traceability model and a traceability system based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and the EPCglobal network. First of all, the transformations of traceability units were defined and analyzed throughout the cattle/beef chain. Secondly, we described the internal and external traceability information acquisition, transformation, and transmission processes throughout the beef supply chain in detail, and explained a methodology for modeling traceability information using the electronic product code information service (EPCIS) framework. Then, the traceability system was implemented based on Fosstrak and FreePastry software packages, and animal ear tag code and electronic product code (EPC) were employed to identify traceability units. Finally, a cattle/beef supply chain included breeding business, slaughter and processing business, distribution business and sales outlet was used as a case study to evaluate the beef supply chain traceability system. The results demonstrated that the major advantages of the traceability system are the effective sharing of information among business and the gapless traceability of the cattle/beef supply chain.

Food Traceability in Supply Chain Based on EPCIS Standard and RFID Technology

The growth of retailer lately very significant especially in food product, selling of food product is not only in conventional market but moreover now is in such mini market, mall, shopping complex, etc. Food traceability is required in supply of food product to make sure items are safe to consume and not in expired date. This paper present on food traceability in supply chain based on Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS), the use of EPCIS standard is refer to Global Standard-1 (GS1) for logistic and supply chain based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology. RFID is used for items tagging on food product instead of barcode that currently widely used the advantages of RFID tag compare than barcode make the system is more applicable to used in food traceability. In this case one of food product take into example in supplying which is banana that the process started from farmer until reach to retail house are monitored and recorded by the system. End process of this system is to give services to the consumer of customer based on EPCIS database collected in all the way of process. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v13i1.6919

Mobile IMS Integration of the Internet of Things in Ecosystem

A high-quality ecosystem plan may signify a milestone in the development of smart living. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the key to establishing a high quality ecosystem. This study developed an IP Multimedia Subsystem IoT architecture for ecosystem applications. The proposed traffic grouping mechanism will group dynamically attach request signaling by agent-based operations to reduce network congestion possibility and to enhance system Service Level Agreement. The Electronic Product Code Information Services platform is implemented and evaluated in a field trial. Performance analyses of the proposed architecture confirm that it can achieve a high-quality ecosystem in terms of CPU utilization and platform performance optimization.