Migros Group is now building its ‘Logistics Data Marketplace’ with the Norwegian platform technology provider Kezzler. In its Data Marketplace, the Swiss retail market leader wants to centralise the flow of goods in its supply chain, thereby creating transparency and seamless traceability.
The retail cooperative consistently follows the GS1 industry standard EPICS 2.0 for the data format, as the retail group also wants to make selected data accessible to external suppliers and logistics service providers via the platform.
Migros Group is well advanced in the automatic capturing of its reusable crates and transport units. Back in 2012, the Migros community began labelling its reusable crates partly with barcodes and partly with RFID labels so that they are always recorded fully automatically when goods are moved.
Consistent with GS1 standards
When it comes to labelling, Migros Group has consistently followed the GS1 industry standards from the outset. Back in 2014, Migros Eastern Switzerland was one of the first retail companies in the world to implement seamless mapping of the flow of goods from Migros’ own production facilities to the shelves of its sales outlets based on the GS1 EPC Information Services (EPCIS) standard.
With its Logistics Data Marketplace, which it is now rebuilding technologically with Kezzler, Migros Group not only wants to radically simplify product recalls and traceability, but also create a database for optimising its logistics efficiency, its order forecasts and other measures against food waste.
Capture on the fly
By automatically capturing the reusable goods carriers every time they are moved using RFID, but also through the fully automated scanning of barcodes as they pass by, the Migros companies save a significant amount of working time that was previously needed to record data. With the centralised data marketplace, which is to be linked to the Migros community’s various SAP systems, the retail group aims to solve problems that have so far arisen from inventory data storage in different silos.
The market leader for reverse vending systems in the retail sector, Tomra, acquired a stake in Kezzler as a strategic investor in March 2023. Platform solutions for tracking empty beverage containers are an important topic for Tomra, both in the area of refillable containers and for the recycling of non-refillable containers.
