GTIN - All you need to know..!!
If you have been working in the supply chain industry, you would have gotten in touch with this mystical term quite a lot. You might have also heard of its equally confusing brothers GTIN-12, GTIN-13, and the most elusive GTIN-8. In this article, we will go over what is a GTIN, and what each number indicates. Also, what are the important things to take care of when you are trying to communicate or transform any GTIN to a higher GTIN form?
What is a GTIN
The GTIN describes a family of GS1 (EAN.UCC) global data structures that employ 14 digits and can be encoded into various types of data carriers. Currently, GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is primarily used within barcodes, but it can also be used in other data carriers such as radio frequency identification (RFID). The GTIN is only an umbrella term to describe varying types of GS1 numbering strings. For North American companies, the UPC is an existing form of the GTIN. [link].
The most important aspect of the GTIN standard is that when one is properly assigned to a given product or service it is globally unique. That means that no other product or service anywhere in the world can ever be assigned that same GTIN so that number can be used anywhere and everywhere to refer to that specific type of product or service. This eliminates product code ambiguity globally.
