The GS1 organisation of Switzerland is tackling the issue of industry-wide product data management in a new way. Based on the Byrd platform from Cologne-based specialists Bayard, it will build a product content hub that will replace the current Trustbox solution, but also offer an independent Swiss connection to the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN).
With the further development of the product content platform Trustbox, GS1 Switzerland intends to cover all the requirements of market participants in various industries for structured data exchange between companies with one solution in the future. In a carefully conducted selection process, GS1 Switzerland chose Bayard as its partner – initially for a preliminary project. Later, Bayard is also to provide implementation consulting and essential parts of the supplier onboarding.
“We were convinced by Bayard’s outstanding technical expertise and overall package of services. They complement us perfectly,” says Jörg Mathis, CEO of GS1 Switzerland. He expressly praises the very cooperative partnership with Bayard right from the start as well as their experience in the Swiss market, which the specialists have been able to gather in numerous projects at Swiss companies such as Migros, Denner and A.Vogel.
Denner already relies on Byrd
Swiss discounter Denner, which is part of Migros Group, has only recently used Bayard’s Product Content Life Cycle Management platform Byrd to seamlessly integrate its Syndigo (formerly: Riversand) MDM system with the GDSN and also the Swiss Trustbox. In the process, Denner also used the GS1-certified GDSN data pool b-synced, a module of the Byrd platform. It is precisely this GDSN connection that the GS1 Switzerland organisation is now planning to offer to all market participants.
The platform will initially meet the requirements of the consumer goods industry and the healthcare sector but will later be open to other industries as well. Suppliers can use it to bring together all product information at one source, manage it and make it available to all recipients in a quality-assured manner.
In the health sector, the data will be used not only by the customers of medical technology manufacturers, but also by official registers such as the European Commission’s EUDAMED database, the US FDA’s GUDID and various implant registers such as the LIR in the Netherlands or, later, SIRIS in Switzerland.
A platform for all product content
Today, Trustbox serves the Swiss consumer goods industry for the exchange of product content required by online retailers and consumer information portals on the internet. However, it cannot map logistical information such as packaging hierarchies and does not meet the requirements of the health industry.
The product content that is exchanged in Switzerland via the Trustbox today, will together with all other product data that wholesalers, retailers and buying groups need from their suppliers, be aggregated, consolidated, validated and made available to business partners on a modern and intuitively usable platform going forward. In this way, the Trustbox and the GDSN are brought together on one platform. Trading companies then only need to connect to the new GS1 Switzerland hub to receive all relevant product data in a quality-checked manner. All members of GS1 Switzerland, whether large or small companies, will thus be given access to electronic data exchange.
Integration of supplier systems doable
With Bayard’s Byrd Product Content Exchange Platform as the technological basis of the new industry solution, suppliers of goods will be able to validate and provide their product data via a user-friendly interface, by importing data from other systems or by fully integrating their in-house systems.
Data from other sources such as foreign GDSN pools or the private Swiss data provider xyxle will also be received by the new solution in future and made available in a quality-checked manner in the GS1 standard and also in other formats.
