A.4 Additional Syntax Rules

In addition, the following rules apply to transferred files:

  1. The transferred file shall use UTF-8 encoding.
  2. GS1 based identifiers shall be expressed as EPC Pure Identity URI encodings, as specified in GS1's EPC Tag Data Standard (TDS), specifically:
  • SGTIN EPC URI for trade items
  • Example:
  • urn:epc:id:sgtin: 0614141.112345.000000000400
  • SSCC EPC URI for logistic units
  • SGLN EPC URI for read points and business locations
  • Non-GS1 identifiers (e.g. country or region-specific codes, or communication within Level 2 and Level 3 that use company specific identification) shall follow CBV provisions for:
  • “General Considerations for HTTP URLs as User Vocabulary elements”,
  • “HTTP URLs for Instance-level identification of objects” and
  • “HTTP URLs for Location identifiers”

    • which are normatively defined in the GS1 Core Business Vocabulary Standard, Chapter 8 User Vocabularies.

    Example (non-GS1 instance-level object identifier:

    https://MyCountryDomain.eu/ProductCode/obj/8675ABC556

    Example (non-GS1 location identifier):

    https://local.com/HEX/loc/3114257BF5A13B8790000000

    1. All serialized identifiers (i.e., SGTIN and SSCC), including but not limited to those appearing in shipping and packing events, shall first have been captured in a commissioning event (i.e., an EPCIS Object Event with action "ADD", business_step "urn:epcglobal:cbv:bizstep:commissioning" and disposition "urn:epcglobal:cbv:bizstep:active".
    2. Aggregation shall be used to capture the relationship between each serialized parent and its immediate children (i.e., an EPCIS Aggregation Event with action "ADD" and business_step "urn:epcglobal:cbv:bizstep:packing"); each additional (nested) level of packaging hierarchy (i.e., grandparents and great-grandparents of the lowest registered level) must be expressed in an additional, dedicated EPCIS Aggregation Event.
    3. Each shipped unit shall always be identified as a logistic unit and captured by means of its SSCC upon dispatch (i.e. an EPCIS Object Event with action "OBSERVE", business step "shipping" and disposition "in_transit").
    4. Each individual hierarchical level packed within this logistic unit shall have been captured in an earlier EPCIS Aggregation Event.
    5. Each commissioning event shall include as many SGTINs as practical; common sense shall be leveraged in conjunction with dialogue between communicating partners to establish an agreed approach to managing file sizes.
  • The maximum number of SGTINs must be agreed between communicating partners during design or change management of a system and should be represented in the properties MaxEPCISObjectEventSIDs and MaxEPCISAggregationEvents of the OPENSCSEventManagerObjectType.
  • While timestamping of individual EPCs (i.e., in individual EPCIS events) is to be avoided to avoid unnecessary bloating of payload, the opposite extreme of including an entire batch run in one event might cause file size exceptions.
  • Strictly enforce GS1 EPCIS chronology sequence standard to be upheld for any single EPC, for example:
  • For any single EPC, the Commission time must be before the Aggregation time which must be before the Shipping time.
  • The Aggregation timer of bottles into a case must be before the Aggregation of the case into a pallet.
  • Any single EPC cannot share the same timestamp in 2 separate events.
  • When possible do not include custom EPCIS event extensions as they increase file size. Where extensions cannot be avoided, these shall be implemented in compliance with the EPCIS standard's extensibility mechanism, including but not limited to declaration of the applicable vendor/user namespace.

    • Bibliography

    OPC 10000-2, OPC Unified Architecture - Part 2: Security Model

    DOCPROPERTY Part2URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part2/

    OPC 10000-8, OPC Unified Architecture - Part 8: Data Access

    DOCPROPERTY Part8URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part8/

    OPC 10000-9, OPC UA Specification: Part 9 – Alarms & Conditions

    DOCPROPERTY Part9URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part9/

    OPC 10000-10, OPC UA Specification: Part 10 - Programs

    DOCPROPERTY Part10URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part10/

    OPC 10000-11, OPC Unified Architecture - Part 11: Historical Access

    DOCPROPERTY Part11URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part11/

    OPC 10000-13, OPC Unified Architecture - Part 13: Aggregates

    DOCPROPERTY Part13URL \* MERGEFORMAT http://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/Part13/