Understanding the Electronic Product Code Information Services Repository

This chapter covers the following topics:

Electronic Product Code Information Services Repository Overview

In this section, we provide an overview of Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) and the EPCIS repository.

EPCIS Overview

Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) is the EPCglobal® standard for capturing and communicating the business events for tracking and tracing products within an enterprise and across the supply chain. EPCIS is a standard that defines interfaces for representation and exchange of data.

The EPCIS standard provides interface specifications built on top of widely used business and Internet standards. EPCIS facilitates internal data capture as well as secure external sharing of information about movement and status of goods in the physical world.

The EPCIS data model specifies a standard way to represent visibility information about physical objects, including descriptions of product movements in a supply chain. The main components of the data model include EPC, Event Time, Business Step, Disposition, Read Point, Business Location, and Business Transaction. The data model is designed to be extended by industries and end users without revising the specification itself.

Visibility information in EPCIS takes the form of "events" that describe specific occurrences in the supply chain. An example event would be that EPC 123 (product) was Received (business step) in Non Sellable condition (disposition) at Distribution Center X (location) yesterday at 2pm EDT (time). A quick way to summarize the components of an EPCIS event are what (product), when (time), where (location), and why (business step and disposition).

EPCIS Repository Overview

EPCIS Repository High-Level Overview

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The EPCIS repository resides in the same database as the Oracle Pedigree and Serialization Manager (OPSM) application. The repository can store all of the EPCIS-level events for the products generated by one or more EPCIS external event capturing systems. These events include:

Using the EPCIS Capture web service, events from external systems or trading partners can be populated into the EPCIS repository. This can be achieved using HTTP Post and JMS Capture. For HTTP Post or JMS Capture, any errors are visible to you in the Web Service Exceptions page using a the Web Service Name of captureEpcisDoc or HTTPPost. The EPCIS Capture web service uses the EPCIS setup information (preferences) that you define in OPSM to determine the data that can be captured and functional security is also required to be able to submit events for capture.

Using the EPCIS Query web service, you can query on EPCIS data (business events) initiated internally, from external trading partners, or regulatory agencies. The result of this query is provided to the accessing application in XML format with a list of EPCIS Event instances. The EPCIS Query web service uses the EPCIS setup information (preferences and policies) and users that you define in OPSM to determine the EPCIS events that can be accessed and functional security is also required to be able to query data.

For more information, see: