Frequently Asked Questions

GS1 is a global, not-for-profit standards organisation that develops and maintains the most widely used supply chain standards in the world, including the barcode. It operates through more than 110 national Member Organisations and sets the rules for how products, locations, and logistics units are uniquely identified and how that data is shared between trading partners.

OpenEPCIS and benelog build directly on GS1 standards (EPCIS, the Core Business Vocabulary, and GS1 Digital Link), so that data captured in one company's systems is understood by everyone else in the chain.

GS1 defines the shared 'language' of global trade: unique identification keys (such as the GTIN for products), data carriers (barcodes, QR codes, RFID/EPC), and data-sharing standards (such as EPCIS) that let companies track and trace items across organisations. Its best-known invention is the barcode, first scanned in 1974.

These are GS1 identification keys. A GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) uniquely identifies a product type; an SGTIN (Serialised GTIN) identifies one individual item; a GLN (Global Location Number) identifies a physical or legal location; and an SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code) identifies a logistics unit such as a pallet or carton.

EPCIS events use exactly these keys to record what was handled, where, and when. That is why GS1 identifiers are the backbone of any traceability system, including OpenEPCIS.

The GS1 Web Vocabulary is a GS1 standard vocabulary for describing products and related entities as structured, linked data on the web. It was published as the first official external extension of schema.org. It lets product attributes (for food, apparel, footwear and more) be expressed in machine-readable JSON-LD or Turtle so that search engines, AI systems and applications can interpret them consistently.

The GS1 Web Vocabulary describes the product itself, complementing EPCIS (which describes what happens to the product) and the Digital Product Passport (which presents that information to people and systems). Because it extends schema.org, publishing product data with it also helps search engines and AI answer engines understand your pages. OpenEPCIS includes GS1 Web Vocabulary support within its data models.

GS1 standards matter because they make traceability interoperable: every partner in a supply chain can capture, share and read the same event data without custom integrations. That shared structure is what makes regulatory reporting (EUDR, DPP, food and pharma safety) achievable across company boundaries rather than fragmented across mismatched, closed systems.

EPCIS (Electronic Product Code Information Services) is the GS1 global standard for capturing and sharing supply chain event data. For any product or logistics unit, it answers the questions What, When, Where, Why and How. It lets different organisations record and exchange visibility events (such as a shipment, a scan, or a transformation) in a single, machine-readable format.

OpenEPCIS is an open-core, fully compliant implementation of this standard.

EPCIS stands for Electronic Product Code Information Services. The name comes from its origins in Electronic Product Code (EPC) and RFID work. Today it is used with all GS1 identifiers, well beyond RFID and EPC.

EPCIS grew out of the Auto-ID Center/EPCglobal work on the Electronic Product Code in the early 2000s, and was first ratified as a GS1 standard in 2007. It was updated to 1.1 (2014) and 1.2 (2016), and then significantly modernised as EPCIS 2.0, ratified by GS1 in June 2022 (together with the Core Business Vocabulary, CBV 2.0).

EPCIS 2.0 added JSON/JSON-LD support, a modern REST API, GS1 Digital Link compatibility, sensor (IoT) data, and a fifth dimension, 'How', alongside the original What/When/Where/Why.

Every EPCIS event answers a set of standard questions: What (which products or items, by their GS1 identifiers), When (the exact date and time), Where (the location, by GLN), and Why (the business context, namely the business step and disposition). EPCIS 2.0 adds How (conditions captured from sensors, such as temperature or humidity).

This consistent structure is what allows a single event to be understood in the same way by every partner in the chain.

EPCIS differs from an internal database because it is a shared, standardised interface for exchanging visibility data across organisations, while an ordinary database stays inside a single company. Two companies using EPCIS can hand off product history to each other out of the box, without tailor-made integrations, because the event format, vocabulary (CBV) and query interface are all defined by the GS1 standard.

The Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) is the companion GS1 standard to EPCIS that defines the standard values used inside events, for example the business steps (shipping, receiving, packing) and dispositions (in_transit, sellable_accessible, recalled). Using the CBV ensures that an event means the same thing to every partner, instead of each company inventing its own labels.

EPCIS 2.0 modernises the standard with native JSON and JSON-LD support, a RESTful API (alongside the older SOAP interface), built-in GS1 Digital Link support, sensor and IoT data capture, and a richer query and subscription model for real-time data delivery, new event type AssociationEvent. EPCIS 1.2 was XML- and SOAP-only.

OpenEPCIS supports both EPCIS 1.2 and 2.0, and can convert between them.

EPCIS 2.0 supports XML, JSON and JSON-LD. XML carries forward compatibility with EPCIS 1.2 deployments, while JSON/JSON-LD is the modern, web-friendly format that also enables linked-data use cases such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Capture and query are the two halves of EPCIS: the capture interface is how events are written into an EPCIS repository, and the query interface is how applications read them back, by product, location, time window or business step. EPCIS 2.0 also adds subscriptions, so systems can be pushed new events in real time instead of repeatedly polling.

Yes. OpenEPCIS is a fully GS1 EPCIS 2.0-compliant implementation, and it also supports the older EPCIS 1.2 standard. Its tech lead, Sven Böckelmann, is Co-Chair of the GSMP Visibility Standards Maintenance Group at GS1, the group that maintains the EPCIS standard itself.

Yes. OpenEPCIS provides a document converter that translates EPCIS documents between XML and JSON/JSON-LD, and between EPCIS 1.2 and 2.0, using a reactive, memory-efficient streaming pipeline. It is available both as a free web tool (Format Converter) and as a REST API for system integration.

You integrate EPCIS through its standard interfaces: send captured events to the capture API, and read them via the query API or real-time subscriptions. OpenEPCIS exposes these as a documented REST API (with Swagger/OpenAPI), ships as Docker/Kubernetes-ready services, and can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises, which keeps integration close to standard rather than bespoke.

GS1 Digital Link is a GS1 standard that turns product identifiers (like a GTIN) into web addresses (URIs), so a single QR code on a product can connect to many kinds of online information: product details, instructions, provenance, sustainability data, or a Digital Product Passport. It makes the barcode 'web-native' while keeping its traditional point-of-sale function.

A traditional barcode encodes only an identifier (for example, a GTIN) that retail systems look up internally, whereas a GS1 Digital Link encodes that same identifier as a web URL that anyone can resolve to online information. One Digital Link QR code can therefore serve consumers, retailers, regulators and supply-chain partners, each routed to the resource relevant to them.

A GS1 Digital Link expresses a GS1 key as a structured web path, for example https://id.gs1.de/01/09522765456782, where '01' is the GS1 Application Identifier for a GTIN and the number is the GTIN itself. It can also carry batch, serial number and other attributes, which is what makes it powerful for item-level traceability and DPP. Similarly, the example for a Global Location Number (GLN) would be https://ref.gs1.com/414/4068194000004, where '414' is the GS1 Application Identifier for a GLN (which identifies a physical or legal location) and 4068194000004 is benelog's GLN.

GS1 Digital Link is the connective tissue between a physical item and its data: the Digital Link on a product can point to EPCIS event history and to a Digital Product Passport. EPCIS records what happened to the item, Digital Link provides the web address to reach that information, and a resolver routes each scan to the right place. OpenEPCIS supports GS1 Digital Link directly.

Yes. OpenEPCIS includes GS1 Digital Link support, with an EPC ↔ Digital Link translator that converts between classic EPC URIs and GS1 Digital Link web URIs, plus a Digital Link Resolver service. This lets identifiers move cleanly between barcodes, EPCIS events and consumer-facing QR codes.

A GS1 Digital Link Resolver is a web service that receives a GS1 Digital Link (the URL behind a product's QR code) and redirects each request to the correct online resource, for example product information for a shopper, an instruction manual, a certificate, or a Digital Product Passport for a regulator. It is the routing layer that makes one QR code serve many audiences.

When a Digital Link URL is scanned, the resolver looks up that identifier and returns the appropriate destination based on what the requester is asking for. GS1 calls this mechanism 'link types' (for example 'product information', 'instructions', or 'sustainability data'). This means the link printed on the pack never changes, even as the online content behind it is updated or expanded over time.

Yes. The OpenEPCIS platform offers a GS1-conformant Digital Link Resolver service, alongside an EPC ↔ Digital Link translator. Together, they let organisations publish GS1-conformant resolvable links that connect physical products to EPCIS data and Digital Product Passports.

Yes. GS1 publishes a GS1-Conformant Resolver standard that defines how a resolver should behave, including how it advertises the available 'link types' (such as product information, instructions, or sustainability data) for a given identifier. GS1 also maintains an open-source Resolver Community Edition. The OpenEPCIS resolver follows the GS1 Digital Link approach, so links stay interoperable across the wider ecosystem.

A resolver is what lets one printed QR code stay valid for the life of the product while routing different audiences to different, updatable content. A hard-coded normal URL points to exactly one page forever; a Digital Link Resolver can serve consumers, supply-chain partners and regulators from the same scan and adapt as regulations (like DPP) and content evolve. It also future-proofs you against change: if a page moves, your website is restructured, or you switch domains, you simply update the link in the resolver. Every QR code already printed on products keeps working, instead of breaking into dead links (404s) the moment the underlying URL changes.

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured digital record of a product's key information (origin, materials, environmental impact, repair and maintenance details, and recycling instructions), accessible by scanning a data carrier such as a QR code. It is an EU initiative to make products more transparent, sustainable and circular across their entire lifecycle.

The EU is introducing the DPP under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to drive the circular economy: by making a product's sustainability and lifecycle data transparent and machine-readable, the DPP helps consumers make informed choices, helps businesses prove compliance, and supports repair, reuse and recycling instead of waste.

DPP requirements are being rolled out sector by sector under the ESPR (adopted in 2024). Batteries are first: under the EU Battery Regulation, industrial and electric-vehicle batteries above 2 kWh must carry a battery passport from 18 February 2027. Other priority groups, including textiles and apparel, iron and steel, aluminium, electronics and tyres, follow through delegated acts roughly between 2027 and 2030.

These dates shift as the EU finalises each delegated act (for example, textile requirements are now expected to apply around 2028–2029 rather than 2027). Always confirm the latest official timeline for your specific product category before planning a programme.

EPCIS enables the DPP by supplying the verifiable event history behind a product's passport. It maps naturally onto the DPP's needs: What (product identity and unique identifiers), When (timeline of events), Where (location history), Why (business context) and How (conditions such as temperature). A Digital Product Passport built on EPCIS data is backed by an auditable trail rather than static, self-declared claims.

They form a chain: a GS1 Digital Link QR code on the product is scanned, a Digital Link Resolver routes that scan to the right destination, and the destination presents the Digital Product Passport, which draws on EPCIS event data for the product's verifiable history. OpenEPCIS provides all three pieces (EPCIS repository, Digital Link support, and resolver) as open-core components.

OpenEPCIS publishes a set of Digital Product Passport extension vocabularies (ontologies) that define the classes, properties and enumerations needed for DPP implementations aligned with EU regulations. The current modules include DPP Core, Battery, EUDR, Textile, Electronics and Detergent.

They are browsable with downloadable artefacts at the OpenEPCIS vocabulary reference site (ref.openepcis.io), with the source maintained in the open 'openepcis-dpp-ready' project on GitHub.

Yes. benelog, the company behind OpenEPCIS, specialises in turning regulations like DPP, EUDR and CSRD into working track-and-trace systems, using the open-core, GS1-based OpenEPCIS platform plus its DPP-ready vocabularies. You can start from the open-source tools or engage benelog for implementation, integration and managed hosting. For the compliance and solution side, see the benelog FAQ.

Open standards matter for the Digital Product Passport because they keep product data portable, interoperable and vendor-neutral, so any partner, regulator or tool can read it without lock-in. OpenEPCIS is built on open GS1 standards (EPCIS, CBV and GS1 Digital Link), so a DPP built on it is not tied to a single proprietary platform.

GS1 provides the foundational, globally recognised standards the Digital Product Passport relies on: unique identification (such as the GTIN), the GS1 Digital Link (the web address that a product's QR code carries), and the resolver that routes each scan to the right information. OpenEPCIS implements these GS1 standards, which is how it makes products DPP-ready.

Retail is migrating from the classic 1D barcode to 2D codes (QR codes powered by GS1 Digital Link) by around 2027, the same data carrier the Digital Product Passport uses. A single GS1 Digital Link QR code can serve the checkout, the consumer and the DPP at once, so 2D-code readiness and DPP readiness go together. OpenEPCIS supports GS1 Digital Link directly.

OpenEPCIS is an open-core, fully GS1-compliant implementation of the EPCIS standard for supply chain visibility. It provides a complete set of tools and projects (an EPCIS 2.0 repository and API, format converters, a Digital Link resolver, and testing utilities) that organisations can use and integrate directly into their systems for real-time tracking, data security and regulatory compliance.

OpenEPCIS is open core. A large set of GS1-compliant tools and libraries (format converter, event hash generator, test data generator, validators, and the URN ↔ Digital Link translator) are open source under the Apache 2.0 licence and free for anyone to use, as both web UIs and REST APIs. On top of that open-source foundation, OpenEPCIS also offers a commercially licensed full platform (multi-tenant runtime, GS1-conformant Resolver service, AS2/B2B gateways, and storage backends).

OpenEPCIS is developed and maintained by benelog (benelog GmbH & Co. KG), a German software company specialising in GS1 EPCIS and supply-chain traceability, together with the open-source community. benelog is led by CEO Thomas Hirsch and Head of Technology Sven Böckelmann, who co-chairs the GS1 group that maintains the EPCIS standard. That keeps OpenEPCIS closely aligned with the standard as it evolves.

OpenEPCIS can capture, store, query and share supply-chain events in the GS1 EPCIS 2.0 standard. It powers real-time tracking, provenance and authenticity verification, recall management, cold-chain monitoring, and regulatory reporting for frameworks like DPP and EUDR. It serves manufacturers, logistics providers, retailers, and the developers and integrators who build for them.

Yes. OpenEPCIS supports high-performance EPCIS subscriptions for real-time event delivery, and EPCIS 2.0's sensor data model lets it ingest live IoT inputs such as temperature and humidity. This is what powers use cases like cold-chain monitoring and condition-based alerts.

Yes. OpenEPCIS has a cloud-native, scalable architecture and ships as Docker/Kubernetes-ready services, so it can run in your own cloud, on-premises, or as a benelog-managed instance. This gives organisations full control over their data and infrastructure.

OpenEPCIS is production-ready and runs in real enterprise environments. It is the same battle-tested platform that underpins the commercial OpenEPCIS Business Edition, and its scalable, cloud-native architecture is designed for performance at any scale.

OpenEPCIS offers a suite of free, ready-to-use EPCIS tools, available both as web apps (tools.openepcis.io) and as REST APIs (https://tools.openepcis.io/q/swagger-ui). They include the Format Converter, Version Converter, Identifier Converter, Event Hash Generator, Event Data Generator (test data), an Event Data Designer, and a Query Centre for exploring EPCIS data.

The OpenEPCIS Format Converter converts EPCIS documents between XML and JSON / JSON-LD (and between EPCIS versions), so partners using different formats can still exchange data seamlessly. It runs as a free web tool and as a REST API for automated integration.

The OpenEPCIS Event Hash Generator creates a unique, canonical hash ID for an EPCIS event, so its integrity can be verified and duplicate events detected. The same event produces the same hash whether it is represented in XML or JSON, which guarantees consistent identity across formats.

The OpenEPCIS Event Data Generator creates realistic, customisable EPCIS test data so developers can validate their system integration before going live. It lets you generate large, standards-compliant event sets without hand-writing them, available as both a web tool and an API.

Every OpenEPCIS tool is available both as a web UI tools.openepcis.io and as a REST API https://tools.openepcis.io/q/swagger-ui, with OpenAPI/Swagger documentation. That means you can use them interactively for quick tasks, or call them programmatically to embed conversion, hashing or test-data generation into your own pipelines.

The OpenEPCIS Business Edition is benelog's commercial, fully supported edition of the open-core OpenEPCIS platform. It is a production-ready edition of GS1 EPCIS 2.0, licensed for organisations that need enterprise-grade supply-chain traceability with professional support and flexible deployment. It is the same battle-tested platform running in real enterprise environments, packaged and backed by benelog. Full details are on the OpenEPCIS Business Edition page.

The open-core OpenEPCIS is free under the Apache 2.0 licence and is a community foundation anyone can use. The Business Edition is benelog's commercial, licensed product built on that foundation, adding a ready-to-run package, deployment options (self-hosted or benelog-managed), and professional support from the team that co-chairs the GS1 EPCIS standard.

For commercial use, the Business Edition is a licensed, paid product. benelog also offers it free of licence fees for non-commercial use to GS1 Member Organisations, universities and research institutions, so those groups can run training, demos, pilots and proofs-of-concept on the full platform without a licence fee. Read the full details on the OpenEPCIS Business Edition page.

GS1 Member Organisations (MOs), universities and research institutions worldwide can use the full Business Edition free of licence fees, strictly for non-commercial purposes: training, live demos, pilot projects and proofs-of-concept on a real, full-featured EPCIS 2.0 platform. The only possible cost is optional hosting if benelog runs a managed instance for them. See the OpenEPCIS Business Edition page for full eligibility details.

The Business Edition can be self-hosted in your own cloud or on-premises for full control over your data and infrastructure, or run as a fully managed instance operated by benelog in a certified German data centre.

EPCIS-based traceability with OpenEPCIS is used across food & beverage, retail & apparel, pharmaceutical & medical devices, and hospitality & grocery. It suits any sector that needs to track products for safety, authenticity, sustainability or regulatory compliance. The same standardised platform adapts to each industry's identifiers and rules.

For food & beverage, OpenEPCIS supports farm-to-fork traceability, cold-chain monitoring (using EPCIS 2.0 sensor data for temperature), waste reduction through real-time inventory visibility, and rapid recall execution. This helps ensure freshness, safety and compliance for perishable goods.

For pharmaceuticals and medical devices, OpenEPCIS provides full item-level traceability, certification monitoring and recall management to meet strict regulations such as the US DSCSA. EPCIS event data gives an auditable chain of custody from manufacture to dispensing.

OpenEPCIS addresses a broad set of supply-chain challenges: regulatory compliance, provenance and authenticity assurance, recall monitoring and execution, diversion detection, waste reduction, certification monitoring, cold-chain monitoring, and carbon-footprint reduction. All are driven by the same standardised EPCIS event data captured across the chain.

benelog is the company that develops and maintains OpenEPCIS, the open-core, standards-conformant implementation of GS1 EPCIS 2.0. A core set of EPCIS tools and libraries is free and open source, while benelog provides implementation, integration, support and managed hosting on top of it, including the OpenEPCIS Business Edition. For the buyer and compliance side, see the benelog FAQ.

Yes. benelog is a GS1 Germany Innovation Partner and Solution Partner, and its Head of Technology Sven Böckelmann co-chairs the GSMP Visibility Standards Maintenance Group at GS1, the group responsible for maintaining the EPCIS standard. That places benelog among the organisations actively shaping the standards it implements.

You can start with OpenEPCIS for free: try the web tools at tools.openepcis.io, explore the source and quickstart projects on GitHub (github.com/openepcis), and deploy the EPCIS 2.0 repository and API via Docker/Kubernetes in the cloud or on-premises. No licence fee is required to begin.

OpenEPCIS documentation lives on openepcis.io, the interactive tools at tools.openepcis.io, the DPP vocabulary reference at ref.openepcis.io, and the source code plus REST/OpenAPI references on GitHub at github.com/openepcis. Together, these cover everything from first concepts to production integration.

For commercial support, implementation, integration or managed hosting, contact either openepcis (info@openepcis.io) or benelog, the company behind OpenEPCIS (info@benelog.com). benelog also offers the OpenEPCIS Business Edition to eligible GS1 Member Organisations, universities and research institutions.

No. OpenEPCIS is free and open-core, and anyone can use it. However, to obtain the official GS1 identifiers (such as GTINs) you use within EPCIS data for real-world trade, you typically license them through your national GS1 Member Organisation. The OpenEPCIS Business Edition is reserved for GS1 MOs, universities and research institutions.