50 Years of Confidence, Supply Chain Success, and the Next Dimension in Barcodes

[00:00:00] I'm very fortunate to go to quite a few different industry events across the year, whether it's your typical trade show or other event. This personally for me is one of the most fulfilling events. Going to the last two years, being around peers and thought leaders and just learning,

[00:00:12] absorbing and hearing the trends and whether it's things I know or things that I didn't know well enough. It's great just to hear from industry colleagues, other solution partners, end users, and it's just a great overall learning experience for me.

[00:00:24] Hello and welcome to the Next Level Supply Chain with GS1 US, a podcast in which we explore the mind bending world of global supply chains, covering topics such as automation, innovation, unique identity and more. I'm your co-host, Reed and I'm Liz. And welcome to the show.

[00:00:43] We are here in Orlando, Florida at GS1 Connect 2024. We have recorded the Next Level Supply Chain with GS1 US with four amazing guests. Reed, we talked to Dave Dilaus from Wegmans. He talked so much about using GS1 standards and what's coming next in the 2D barcode.

[00:00:59] It was a really great conversation. And then we got into a little bit more of the pharmaceutical medical health care side with Sean Murphy. Yeah, he talked a lot about DSCSA. Yes, which is easy to say for us because we've been doing it for a while.

[00:01:13] But Drug Supply Chain Security Act. And then we talked to Andy Meadows from Blink. And that blew your mind. It did. It blew my mind. It was so great talking about how QR codes can really unlock so much for brands and consumers. It was amazing.

[00:01:29] And Blink focuses in on resolvers for QR code. So definitely listen into that. And then we wrapped up with J.W. Franz from Barcoding Inc. Yeah, he actually has a party every June 26th for the anniversary of the barcode, which was amazing. They are solution partners.

[00:01:47] Yeah, they're solution partners. They've been to connect. They're going to continue. And it was just a fun conversation. Yeah, this was a great event. This has been a great week and I'm glad we were able to sit down live with four of our guests here.

[00:02:00] And one common theme that they all loved about connect was that there was different industries talking about similar challenges and how they can learn from one another. So that was a really cool pick up. So enjoy the show. Welcome to the next level supply chain with GS1 US.

[00:02:17] As you can see, Liz and I are actually here live together. We're usually we're in separate states doing this over the interwebs, as I like to say, as an older person. But today we're live together here at GS1 connect conference in Orlando.

[00:02:34] And we have a tremendous guest with us today from Wegmans. Dave, if you wouldn't mind just introduce yourself real quick. Well, I'm Dave DeLoss. I'm the CIO at Wegmans Food Markets. We're a smaller privately owned chain.

[00:02:45] We have 111 stores on the East Coast and real happy to be here. Thanks. We're excited to have you. You guys have been a great proponent of GS1 standards. Is this your first connect? No, it's my third connect. Third connect. What do you find the most interesting, most fun?

[00:03:01] It is always neat to bring people from different segments. So what I mean by that is health care is here. There's food service here in retail. And I always find talking to folks who work in different industries, it's really a great way to learn.

[00:03:14] And I've always been amazed at how people solve problems differently, but then there's neat things you can learn to solve problems in your own industry. Right. There's some similar threads that are happening. We've sat in a couple of these panels where people are talking about

[00:03:27] serialization and the importance of it. And how does that come into like the FSMA food safety modernization act? You're welcome, Liz. I know that's... Pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah. But in healthcare and with pharmaceuticals and the importance of batch and lot and serialization.

[00:03:44] So I'm glad to hear you say that you benefit from the cross industry pollination that's happening. What's something major that you're focused in right now, like in your role at Wegmans, what's the big hot topic that you guys are chasing?

[00:03:59] In my role, technology is a huge lever for us. We see it as something that's going to benefit our customers, our people. So we're making big investments in technology, whether it's, you know, a new website or a new ERP system.

[00:04:11] But around standards, we're working really hard on implementing 2D barcodes at Wegmans. We think that's going to be a big unlock for our consumers. Traceability is top of mind for everybody because there's the impending deadline that FSMA will be bringing us.

[00:04:24] And so working very hard on that as well, which is going to require a great amount of collaboration with us and our suppliers, lots of investments in technology, but also investments in doing things differently. And for us, it's a great way to just improve your operations, I think.

[00:04:40] So we're looking forward to it. With the 2D barcode, and for those that don't know what a 2D barcode is, the most common one that's out there today is QR code. Most people see that. Is this a seamless thing that's going to happen for you all?

[00:04:54] Like we have the strategy, we have the plan. It's just going to take the time to roll it out. Are you still working through some challenges? Can you share any insights? Yeah, it's funny you say that because the 2D barcode, think of it as a

[00:05:04] QR code, but with GS1 standards, they put some information in there in very specific ways so that your systems can say, oh, that's where the lock code is or that's where the G10 is. And on our front ends, we scan a barcode today and it goes beep and

[00:05:17] it says, hey, that was 69 cents. In the future, that same thing can come right out of the QR code or the 2D barcode. And it's just a very simple, sounds very simple, but I was surprised at how much effort that's taking us to get that done.

[00:05:30] On the backend, on the programming side? Whether it's our POS provider, the scan providers, the backend systems that we have to modify. It's been a pretty big challenge for us, but we think there's great value in that

[00:05:42] and what it can unlock for us and for our consumers, but it takes some effort is what we really learn. And summarize 2027 is the ability to scan the 2D barcode right? And get the G10 and the global trade item number out of it.

[00:05:54] So it will scan at point of sale. Yes. One of the things you just mentioned was additional information. Yes. You can put in a 2D barcode. Are you all thinking about that for things like your private brands and how you can interact differently with your consumer, your customer?

[00:06:06] Sure. It gives you the ability to put a URL so a customer can scan that same barcode and they can take them and provide all kinds of information about your products. But you can also embed in that things like expiration date, for example.

[00:06:19] So if it's a product that we package in the stores and we print out a scale label, you know, today we print out a scale label with a QR code that maybe gives you cooking directions and things like that.

[00:06:28] But in the future it may have in there as well, the expiration date. So if we scan it on our front end, it would say, hey, this is expired. You can't sell that. So there's lots of little things in there.

[00:06:38] But again, whether it's the daddy have to make behind the scenes, whether it's the changes to all the systems, the many, many scanners you have around your store, you know, not just the front end, the handheld scanners, the employee devices, all those things have to be brought

[00:06:52] together to make this happen. So it's a little bit bigger task than I thought, but we're on our way. One step at a time. Yeah. Crawl Walk Run. Yep. We've been continuing to hear about this. John Phillips and PepsiCo talked about Crawl Walk Run and it's really neat.

[00:07:05] Get foundational, make it go beep is the crawl. But then you start getting some really great stuff. And when you get to run, we think it's going to be something that it's going to just delight consumers. Yeah. Really powerful. Yes. Food safety. Really powerful. Yep. Yep.

[00:07:18] There's a lot to this and we are celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the first UPC barcode that was scanned. And we're talking about 2D and these QR code type of barcodes moving forward. Do you think they're going to have the same run?

[00:07:33] 50 years, 50 years, a long time in technology. It's mind blowing. Well, it is mind blowing that this has gone as long as it has. It's such a core technology to our industry. I mean, you can't imagine going into a store that doesn't have this. Changing the railroad.

[00:07:48] You know, it's not going to be this wide. It's going to be this wide now. It's like, you got to go pull everything up. Computer vision is a very interesting technology that's making a lot of progress. But the thing about computer vision is when you scan a barcode

[00:08:00] on the front end, we really in our operation, they're very big. There's a lot going on there and you got to have a hundred percent. I mean, you can't have things that don't go beep. You can't have things that are inaccurate.

[00:08:10] And to get to a hundred percent is a really difficult challenge. If you're talking about something like computer vision, it can't miss. It can't get confused. They can't do any of those things. So I think that's a technology someday that will impact this the way

[00:08:24] we kind of check things out, if you will, in a store. But I do think that 2D is going to have quite a run. I'd find it hard to believe today that someone would go 50 years, but never say never. Right.

[00:08:34] Well, and if you look at, we still take trains. Trains have been around a lot longer than 50 years. Right? So some technology really does kind of stay in the mix. You brought up computer vision and I've been following computer

[00:08:46] vision for quite some time, really fascinated by the technology. And it just so happens that right before this podcast, I was sitting in on one of the talks, the CEO of Gather AI was talking about the combination of computer vision with QR codes, with G 10s built

[00:09:04] into this information and talking about the power of combining the two technologies. One, I can see what's on the racks. What is the inventory count? Are the goods damaged? Right. I may have the count, but they're damaged goods. Have the Apple spoiled, but also combining the information of

[00:09:24] batch and lot information, expiration date information that was in the QR code and just a lot of other very interesting things that were coming together and mashing the two technologies. Cause right now you still need both. Yep. No question about it.

[00:09:38] You know, I think some of the breakthroughs with scanning technology allows you to scan, you know, massive amounts of barcodes at the same time to just go down the shelf and scan the whole shelf at once. These are things that just weren't possible.

[00:09:50] And so again, if there's more data, more information in those codes that we're scanning now at much faster rates and at scale, nothing but good things could happen there. Excellent. It's so exciting. All of the information that this can unlock in the future.

[00:10:05] Thank you so much for coming and chatting with us and being here at GS1 Connect and component. Thank you. Sean, thank you so much for being here. Thank you guys for having me. Very excited to be here. Yeah. We're at GS1 Connect. Tell us about yourself.

[00:10:19] Tell us about what you do at your organization. Sure. So my name is Sean Murphy. I'm with Sankora, senior manager of manufacturing operations. I've been with Sankora for coming up on 10 years here. It'll be 10 years in September. Time just flies.

[00:10:31] But for the past six years, I've been working on the drug supply chain security act, primarily working with Matt Sample's team in, you know, primarily our upstream customers, our manufacturing trading partners, just to make sure that we're ready for the

[00:10:44] challenges that come with the drug supply chain security act. So for those who don't know the drug supply chain security act, or DSCSA as it's more commonly referred to, is a law that was passed into effect back in 2013. The goal of which being that all product, all pharmaceutical

[00:10:57] product within the U S supply chain should carry a digital backpack with a unique serial number identifier so that we could more easily track that product as it moves through the supply chain. Where did it come from? Where has it been? And is it a legitimate product?

[00:11:09] With the goal of which being to reduce and eliminate black and gray market drug sales within the pharmaceutical supply chain. So as I said, the last 10 years have been really focused upstream working with manufacturers on getting the correct product identifiers

[00:11:22] attached to their products, to the packaging, making sure that we can read it. Everything is standardized and we're able to move product through the supply chain in a compliant fashion without disrupting or creating product shortages. More recently in the last few years, and this year in

[00:11:36] particular, the goal has kind of transitioned to now really working with our downstream trading partners with customers who in some ways have been left out of the conversation a little bit up until now and just trying to bring them up to speed and make

[00:11:49] sure that they're aware what the industry standards are and what we at Sancora, the McKesson Cardinal, the other wholesalers in the industry, as well as the solutions providers have done to try to facilitate compliance for them as well. It's a lot.

[00:12:02] It's a lot of information that's going through the supply chain. Certainly. Is it just on the package or is it electronically shared too? Correct. Yep. The serialized information has to be in both digital and physical format. So the product packaging carries identifiers in human readable

[00:12:16] format and machine readable format. And that digital backpack has to come with it in what's called an EPCIS data transaction, which is the standard industry is using. It stands for electronic product code information service. So that digital information has to match that serialized

[00:12:29] information and all of that has to be standardized in interoperable fashion, as FDA likes to say. Everybody in the industry knows how to understand what they're looking at. Yeah. He's hitting all the hot spots. I almost feel like he works for GS1. I know.

[00:12:41] Wait, what kind of backpack? A digital backpack. So I'm going to steal that. Can I steal that? Please. I think maybe Matt Sample created it. I don't know who originated it. I really like the digital backpack. That was the first time I've heard it, but it brought me

[00:12:51] back to the little kids timeframe, the door of the explorer. That's where I went to. I'm glad we're okay. Back on track, Sean. Back on track. So this is your first connect? My first connect. Excited to be here. Yeah. So what do you think so far?

[00:13:05] It's been great. Everybody winds up, I think, getting a little siloed and specialized in what they're working on day to day. So for me in the healthcare space, it's kind of nice to step outside and see some of the food safety stuff,

[00:13:15] especially with FSMA and other similar workstreams starting to come into that industry as well. But it's just interesting to broaden your horizons a little bit and see the other work that you all at GS1 have been working on.

[00:13:25] And I know a lot of the food folks are listening to you all because you went first. Yeah, from a regulatory traceability perspective. Hopefully they can learn from our mistakes. Yeah, it's very interesting because you're the second guest. We had Dave from Wegmans just a little bit ago.

[00:13:40] And he said the same thing. Like, it's nice to be in an environment where we're talking about similar things, but we're learning from other environments and learning how they're dealing with the challenges. Has there been any session or conversation that's

[00:13:55] happened so far where you're like, wow, I wasn't expecting that coming here? Yeah, we're really starting to look into RFID and RFID technology and how we can leverage that to kind of enhance our supply chain. So certainly there's been lots of conversations here

[00:14:08] around RFID and just the standardization work going on there as well so that we can all speak the same language when we're moving those products through the supply chain. He does sound like one of us. I kind of love it. No, we've never met Sean before.

[00:14:20] I mean, never. I'll spend a long time working on GS1 standards. It's awesome. I look over the GS1 serialization guide most days. I'm so sorry. And have you spent some time with the partners that are here with their booths and talking about their goods?

[00:14:33] Because I've seen a couple of RFID partners. Yeah, absolutely. CCL E-Agile is here. So spent some nice time talking with Peter, very knowledgeable on the RFID technology. So looking to maybe get out and visit them as well. But certainly there's others as well.

[00:14:46] Lots of interesting people here to share information. Yeah, absolutely. One of the questions I was going to ask, and you may have already answered it, was what is the biggest thing that you're working on right now? And it sounds like downstream. But is there anything else that you're

[00:15:00] working on thinking about from an organizational perspective? Certainly. DSCSA, with the deadline being here in November when the exemption guidance expires. And there's a lot of people with their fingers crossed hoping that it will get pushed out again. Yeah, I hope they're not hoping too much

[00:15:15] and they're doing the work right now. So that's focus number one, that we're going to be ready, that our trading partners are going to be ready come November. But we absolutely have other initiatives we're looking into as well. The goal is to create a smart,

[00:15:26] safe and sustainable supply chain. So we're looking at digital labeling. How can we use that to reduce the paper in the industry? I don't know about you guys, but I know we cut down more than our fair share of trees. So how can we reduce the paper

[00:15:39] going through the supply chain? How can we create a more relevant and easy to use product ultimately for pharmacists and for patients as well? As well as how can we leverage the increased data that we now have access to? DSCSA has been such a compliance

[00:15:52] hurdle up until now. We're starting to now transition into what value we can add beyond compliance, both internally and externally. So just how can we make a smarter, safer and more sustainable supply chain? So there's plenty of work to do there. I'm sure you'd agree. Yes, absolutely.

[00:16:07] Yeah, I would. And I just want to thank you for the work that you all do, because I know that I take it for granted the safety of the pharmaceutical industry we have here in the United States. And I never knew of fake drugs. And it's not even...

[00:16:23] Let's just deal with the real drugs. It's the proper handling, right? What needs to be refrigerated? What doesn't? And the sharing of that data. So I mean, it's just really critical. And when you really slow down and think about your day and raising

[00:16:35] kids and taking care of your parents and the medicine we all take. So thank you for that. Please, thank you guys as well for all the work you've done as well helping standardize the industry. Yes, see? We even have friends here. This is amazing. Amazing.

[00:16:48] So we are celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the UPC barcode. Right. And it is mind blowing when you really think about a technology like a barcode being leveraged for 50 years. But you mentioned RFID. We've been talking a lot about 2D barcodes here. Are 2D big in your environment

[00:17:07] right now? Like, I kind of feel like I'm leading the witness because I kind of know the answer to that. But I mean, health care is a little bit different than some other environments where you've been mandated, I believe. Is that a fair statement? Correct.

[00:17:18] We've sort of circled our way into essentially the only way that we can carry a machine readable format with all of the information that we're expected to encode on a product package is through a 2D data matrix. So they're everywhere in our supply chain.

[00:17:31] How long have you been doing that? The inception was in 2013 with the passing of DSCSA, but the requirements for when manufacturers were expected to have it on their packaging, I believe was 2018, 2016, several years at this point. So it's the norm at this point. It's on basically every product

[00:17:46] that we're seeing in our supply chain. And I think there's eyes on expiring sort of the FDA linear barcode rule in favor of that 2D data matrix now that 2D scanners are becoming more and more common in the commercial space. And as you look additionally at

[00:17:59] the NDC expanding out to 12 digits, which would no longer comfortably fit within a UPCA linear barcode. There's more and more reasons why the 2D is kind of evolving into the barcode of the future. Yeah, I've overheard a lot of people and you talked about it.

[00:18:13] It's cross industry pollination and sharing, collaborating. But I've heard a lot of conversations of, yeah, I'm glad you guys are moving to the 2D barcode because we've been doing it now for like five, six, eight years. And a lot of people forget 2D barcode has been around

[00:18:29] for a long time. It's just we haven't adopted them in. Sean, thank you so much for one, attending Connect. Absolutely. Two, sharing your knowledge and three, stopping by and sharing with our listeners here today. Really appreciate the time. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:18:43] Thank you. Andy, welcome to the show. Thank you. Glad to be here. We're so glad that you can carve out a little bit of time here at GS1 Connect here down in Orlando. Liz and I haven't been outside yet, so we have no idea if the weather is

[00:18:56] nice or anything. But Andy, before we jump into a couple of our questions, if you would just for our audience, just introduce yourself, let everyone know where you work and what you do. Absolutely. My name is Andy Meadows from Austin, Texas. The company is called Blink.

[00:19:09] I'm the founder and CEO. And we do 2D barcodes and digital resolvers. So short links, redirected to landing pages that we also host on our new platform called Blink CXP. So Liz is like, wait, what's going on, Reid? Don't make fun of me. She's looking at me like

[00:19:24] you're the tech guy. She's the smart person. I'm just like, I read these other things that our lives are complementary. Understood. Four folks that are out there, digital resolvers. I can hear my parents and my sisters right now, like, what is that, Reid? What does it work?

[00:19:41] You're talking about the links that are in QR codes. Correct. Right. And they can be webified. And the resolver is the spot where they land. The resolver is how we get from A to B. So we take the QR code, so that 2D barcode.

[00:19:56] And when you scan that at the register, it beeps and that brings up just like your regular 1D barcode. But you scan it with either phone, then that resolver can resolve that URL to a destination that takes it to some place new and that someplace

[00:20:08] new could be at digital landing page or in Europe, the digital product passport. So essentially a collection of landing pages that can be any content that really activates the audience. That's fascinating. And so what I love about this and QR codes have been around for a long time.

[00:20:22] Yes, a lot longer than most people think. Most people, oh, it came out during COVID. Right. Yeah, because it was at every restaurant. But it's endless. You're webifying an interface that is physical. Correct. How does it know to be a POS versus a phone?

[00:20:40] So it's the exact same URL that's inside the QR code. What's great, though, is that at the point of sale at the register, when you scan it, it still sees the same content, but it recognizes the format and that format is what's very specific about that structure.

[00:20:53] And so the GS1 format tells the register this is a barcode that you can use to check out. When you scan it with your phone, your phone sees the URL and won't treat it just like any other URL. That's really cool. Yeah, I think it's fantastic.

[00:21:03] I always wondered that actually. I'm just still excited to buy it. Yeah. I see it every day, but I still get excited. And there's so many uses for both, whether it's scanning because we all need to buy things or as a consumer,

[00:21:13] all of that different kind of information. And I'm assuming you can also, once people encode the information, batch lot, expiry date, things like that. Correct. That's cool. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's really, what's fantastic about it is it's taking a company's most valuable asset, which is their product

[00:21:29] or packaging that's in market and it's activating it. So they can really reach out to their audience and create that relationship. It's digitizing it. It is. And there's so many other services and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not the expert on this by any means,

[00:21:40] but there are other services that you can tie to it, like location services. If I scan a product in Florida versus scanning a product in Alaska, I might get a different interaction. Is that true? Absolutely. Yeah, so our platform as an example, scan the same QR code.

[00:21:55] If you speak English versus Spanish versus French, you have a different result to have different language content by location. If you have, say, an activation that's valid in one state but not another or the activations are different. This is where my IT friends pull their standards together,

[00:22:08] but they're services, right? It's not like you're not providing that. You are working with other location service providers and linking the services through like an ecosystem of a solution. So we actually do the redirection ourselves based on that. So we're looking for language and device type.

[00:22:23] And what day of the week is it? It's a July 4th sale. So it's after July 5th. So I want to go someplace different. So the whole concept in marketing is surprise and delight. You don't want to surprise and disappoint. Right. So when they do scan that,

[00:22:33] if it's July 5th, you don't want to take them to something that's expired. You want to take them to the next best thing. I love that. It's getting so much better. I'm thinking about a convenience store back in my old life. We talked about day parts

[00:22:42] and morning drinks and middle of the day drinks and afternoon drinks. Can it get down that granularly to time of day? Sure, absolutely. Isn't it? Yeah, open or closed. If it's Sunday and you scan something versus a Monday, you scan something. Absolutely. That's amazing. Yeah, because we still,

[00:23:00] I mean, even today, you know, it's 2024 and you go to a website and you're searching for something and then all of a sudden it's like all over every feed you have. All your social media feeds. It's the same thing. Then you go buy said product,

[00:23:14] you know, maybe it was a big investment, right? Like maybe it was a motorcycle. Hint hint to the wife who's listening at home, you know, a new one. And then you buy said motorcycle and you're still getting advertisements for said motorcycle. So I love that fact of

[00:23:28] understanding the day of the week, the day of the year. It really enriches the experience. To me, what's really fascinating about the whole concept of the digital product passport of those landing pages that you connect to the QR codes is about privacy and data security.

[00:23:41] So when you're browsing randomly on a social media site and you search for something, now everybody's targeting you because they're listening to that social media site. But what this does, it allows you to create that relationship one to one between the audience and the consumer.

[00:23:54] So when you scan that code, that data is such a concern around first party data that we can't share data anymore, the privacy of information. But this allows a brand to reach out and create that one to one relationship. So they're not getting your information

[00:24:06] from a third party, they're getting it from you directly. You choose what you share with the brand. And so creating that let you allow yourself to choose how you're sharing your details with them or what you want to do and how you want to engage with them.

[00:24:15] I see the wheel spinning. I mean, I just see marketers and brand people and a product manufacturer getting in a room and you telling the story of what could be and their minds blowing with all the different things they can do. How do you advise them

[00:24:32] to start slow, figure out what your use cases are and then build on that? Because I'm sure their ideas are this many. To me, I equate it to a long time ago. It was all 800 numbers than it was websites. And now I look at this

[00:24:45] as a new opportunity. It's very similar where you have this new burst of content. And so the question is, well, what do we do? What's the first thing they want to do and how do you evolve that? And so as you've heard many times at the conference,

[00:24:54] the crawl, walk, run. It's how do we start out small and simple? But brands are looking for ways to build upon that. They don't want to go back and redo anything, but they want to have something that they can build on and keep evolving to that.

[00:25:04] So it's really a matter of the evolution, not the revolution. It's so cool. So you bring up Connect. Is this your first GS1 Connect have you been before? First time. What do you think? I think it's fantastic. Yeah, yes, the content, the people, the organization itself

[00:25:17] has been absolutely fantastic. So great people, great communication, great conversation. It's fun to be around a thousand people who think QR codes are cool. Right? Yes, I try to get people to agree with that. But these are the people. These are my people. That's fantastic.

[00:25:34] So we're also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the UPC barcode, right, which is serviced a long time and has done a lot for industries, whether it be health care or food service and grocery and apparel, general merchandise. But the QR code and other 2D bar codes

[00:25:54] really enable for a lot more data to be impacted. Do you think they'll have the same run? 50 years? I really do. I think that the 1D barcode has earned its retirement. It's worked hard. It's done a great job. I don't think it's going to go out overnight.

[00:26:07] Yeah, I think it'll take a potentially generation to truly find out. We're still driving classic cars. Exactly. And they're still cool. They have their use. But really, when you dig into it, the QR code can do so much more. And I really feel like as the standard,

[00:26:19] because nothing moves overnight. So it's going to take time to adopt him to implement, but also gives it a long run because there's investments that are happening, significant investments to make this happen. And brands are taking us very seriously. And I'm excited by that

[00:26:30] because I see the potential and so do they. And so to me, the impact is going to be monumental. Yeah, and I think one thing we haven't talked about just to kind of throw it in here real quick is what you're talking about with the QR interaction

[00:26:42] with brands and QR codes and smartphones. It's been around for a while. There was a lot of proprietary coding going into it. And that required more real estate on packaging. So we're trying to move out with the UPC and move in with QR code and put it in

[00:26:59] and leveraging an open standard like digital link from GS1. Are you seeing that as helping to advance the adoption? Yeah, I see brands are getting very creative with how they're choosing implement it. There's a lot of thought going into it. I'm hearing the same conversations across multiple brands.

[00:27:15] So what's great about that is that there's consistency. People are thinking alike in that regard. But there's also innovation and people are sharing that innovation because they see the excitement around it. So they're not trying to keep it to themselves. They want to share it because they know

[00:27:25] that the faster we all adopt this, the faster everybody wins. That's awesome. Thank you so much for coming. My pleasure. It's been an amazing conversation. My mind is kind of spinning right now and I may come visit your booth in the next day

[00:27:37] so that I can pick your brains more. Excellent. Please do. Happy to answer questions anytime. Thank you so much. Andy, thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you. J.W. Welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you. Thank you. We're here at GS1 Connect in Orlando.

[00:27:51] Yes. We usually don't get to do this kind of thing in person so we're thrilled to be able to have this opportunity to talk to you. Likewise. Tell us about yourself, your organization and what you're doing here at Connect. I appreciate it. Officially my title is

[00:28:03] I'm the IoT and Automation Solution Director here at Barcoding Inc. For those that don't know barcoding, we're a supply chain automation innovation company. It's really helping our customers to be more accurate, efficient and connected. And we are here at GS1 Connect. This is our second Connect

[00:28:18] as we have been a solution partner for the last two years. So this is our second year and looking forward to next year in Nashville as an attendee and hopefully an exhibitor next year. Excellent. So you mentioned you've been to Connect twice. I have two part question.

[00:28:30] You're also a solution partner program member. Absolutely. So thank you for that partnership. We really appreciate it. Are you exhibiting this week or not? Oh, no. Just to clarify. Yes. So last year was our first year. Didn't know what to expect. Went in and eyes wide open

[00:28:44] and it was a great event. Hence why we're here this year. We and some of my counterparts and then just seeing what we saw last year, plus a lot more. We already said, hey, we know we're coming back next year, but let's do more next year.

[00:28:54] And what that doing next year means is to be determined. But I fully expect that we will be an exhibitor next year and have more than myself and my colleague here to join us. Great. Second part to this is what is the biggest takeaway from attending Connect?

[00:29:08] I mean, has it lived up to your expectations? Are there any surprises that you weren't expecting that you experienced? Or is it hitting right on where you thought and you're walking away with what you need? For me, in my role barcoding, I'm very fortunate to go

[00:29:20] to quite a few different industry events across the year, whether it's your typical trade show or other event. This personally for me is one of the most fulfilling events going to the last two years. Being around peers and thought leaders and just learning, absorbing and hearing

[00:29:33] the trends and whether there's things I know or things that I didn't know well enough. It's great just to hear from industry colleagues, other solution partners, end users. And it's just a great overall learning experience for me. When you think about what your organization

[00:29:45] is really focused on right now, what are you thinking about? What's out there that you all are doing and talking to your customers about? When you say you're a supply chain automation innovation company, it's pretty broad. And it's kind of by design because while we're supply chain focused,

[00:29:58] we do a lot in manufacturing, distribution and largely a lot more in retail last year, two years. But as much as we were not vertically focused in the last few years, we were talking to automotive customers, retailers and food distributors and such. The last year has really

[00:30:12] proven to be very focused for retail for us. So we're talking retail supply chain now. We're talking to a lot, working with a lot of distributors, working with a lot of retailers for both their needs. So it's been great. So we've also been talking about here this week

[00:30:26] the 50 year anniversary of the UPC barcode. What do you see coming down the road? Is something going to last another 50 years? I mean, 2D barcodes everyone's talking about, RFID, computer vision. And there's a lot of things out there. There is to give a little shameless plug

[00:30:41] from a barcoding perspective. We value the barcode so much that we actually have our own celebration for it. So we have National Barcode Day. So on June 26th, as a company, we celebrate National Barcode Day. So I know our marketing people get very excited about this time

[00:30:55] and we've invited people like GS1 and others to celebrate that with us. So that said, yes, it's something that we see a lot more to come for me personally, as I mentioned, with our solutions being largely focused in retail these days and me coming from

[00:31:06] a very extensive background in rain RFID, the evolution of the barcode and getting into serialized data. Those two obviously coexist quite well and open up a whole new spectrum of opportunities and use cases for us to work with customers. So for me, it's been great because they said

[00:31:20] in the last year or two getting such focus in retail. We're talking about things that directly relate to the consumer experience and that ties into the things that we all talk about every day. So yeah, a lot more to come. It's great. Yeah. Well, listen,

[00:31:31] we can't thank you enough for carving out some time to sit down with us today and we really appreciate your involvement and collaboration here at Connect. Thank you very much. We'll see you next year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us

[00:31:44] on this episode of the next level supply chain with GS1 US. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe to our feed and explore more great episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to share and follow us on social media. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.