In Poland, the proper functioning of the GS1 system has been overseen for 20 years by the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing – the entity authorized to register companies and institutions in the GS1 system in the country. However, if one were to ask a statistical Pole what the GS1 standards system is, how it functions, and where one can encounter it in everyday life, the answers could be very different. Meanwhile, everyone who has ever shopped in any retail chain has seen one of the four pillars of the GS1 system with their own eyes. It is the barcode – the most commonly used GS1 standard in Poland.
In 2009, 2,342 new participants were registered in the GS1 system, which, together with the remaining companies, brings the total number to almost 18,000 firms. Figure 1 shows the growth dynamics of members in subsequent years. The highest number of companies joined between 2001 and 2005, when global chains were starting their operations on the Polish market. In recent years, the number of newly joining companies has stabilized. The year 2009 indicates increased interest in the standards, as despite the crisis, the number of new companies grew by 22%.
The majority of Polish companies registered in the GS1 system are small and very small businesses. 71% of the firms are enterprises generating up to 5 million PLN in annual revenue. Large companies, with over 100 million PLN in revenue, account for only 4.5% of participants. However, taking into account CSO (GUS) data and the number of employed staff, large companies make up as much as 19% of the total number of enterprises in Poland. In the case of micro-enterprises, growing interest has been noted, but they still use GS1 solutions to a small extent. In 2008, it was only 8,329 companies out of over 3 million registered with the CSO.
Barcodes placed on collective packaging allow for automated reading of the data contained within them, for example, product identification numbers, their expiration dates, or production batch numbers. This data can be transmitted between partners in the supply chain using electronic commercial messages, abandoning their paper counterparts. Almost 75% of GS1 System Participants in Poland, in addition to consumer units, also code collective units. The main code used for marking collective packaging is still EAN-13. The use of the GS1-128 code is slowly growing – in 2009, compared to the previous year, 20% more companies used this symbology. More and more companies are deciding to implement electronic data interchange, in particular electronic invoicing. Last year, 3,646 companies declared the use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). This accounts for over 1/5 of all System Participants.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 1/2010.