Lately I needed the address of a Distribution Center of one of the major german retailers. As usual I first tried google but there was no address to be found. I found a lot of information on the DC - press releases mentioning it and stuff like that - but no address.
Then I happily remembered GEPIR. GEPIR is a global service from GS1 and GS1 promotes it as "a unique, internet-based service that gives access to basic contact information for companies that are members of GS1. These member companies use GS1's globally unique numbering system to identify their products, physical locations, or shipments." .
And as you know each and every retailers uses GLN's (Global Location Numbers - the GS1 numbering system to identify physical locations) to also identify their Distribution Centers (DC's).
Ok - I quickly went to http://www.gepir.de (you can also use the more international version http://www.gepir.org or any of the other nationally provided URL's, they all access the same data), typed in the name of the retailer - and was first very surprised and then quite disappointed.
There were only 17 hits and none of them was a Distribution Center!?
I quickly checked multiple of the major german retailers, EDEKA, Metro, REWE - none of their Distribution Centers gets listed by GEPIR.
And all of them have more then one thousand GLN's to identify their DC and store locations!
GS1 is selling each and every GLN and they are not able to provide the correct master data to their GLN's!???
How come?
Did I get their vision wrong for GEPIR? Is GEPIR not meant to provide all the master data to the GS1 numbers? If that is not the vision of GEPIR what shall be the value otherwise??
I think the vision of GEPIR is to provide all the master data identified by the GS1 identifiers. Regarding the GLN I expect GEPIR to have all valid GLN's and the physical addresses they refer too. And I would also expect GEPIR to show what type of location that is. Is it a DC? Is it a store? Is it a location used for ordering? Or is it a location used for invoicing? But that is a second issue with GEPIR.
I think GS1 has a simple master data management issue as many companies do have. I think there is a vision what GEPIR should be (see above), there might be even a strategy how to achieve that vision (implement a globally shared database) but they did the typical mistakes you can see in many companies regarding master data management.
They did not establish any metrics. For example they should measure what the coverage of the GLN's within GEPIR compared to the sold GLN's is. Then they would know that the coverage in the best case is only 50-60% and that they would have to take some measures to improve the situation.
They did not establish any sustainable organisation and processes. Who is responsible to get new GLN's into GEPIR? How about updates of addresses?
And finally their IT infrastructure does not seem to be really tailored to best support their vision. I even heard that couple times GLN's from a single, local GS1 organisation was sold two times. What a mess. And what type of IT infrastructure is not able to ensure the uniqueness of such a simple number like the GLN?
So finally GEPIR currently ends up as many MDM and PIM projects. There is a great tool. Even with an iPhone app. But it really sucks because the master data is either not available or the quality is so poor that you do not want to rely on it.
Care for the content! Care for your master data! Care for your master data quality!
Ok GS1, I really would recommend that you start a Master Data Management Program as you are expecting from your members to do data synchronisation. A possible point to start with you can find here: What is a MDM program?
GEPIR is really out of sync right now!
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Update 03.12.2011:
There are some really interesting comments to this post on linkedin, which you can find here.
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