Supply Chain
Technology Podcast

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Serialization, traceability, COVID-19 vaccines, supply chain, unique identifier, authentication, temperature control, distribution challenges, public health, chain of custody, security risks, third-party logistics, data sharing, technology, GS1 standards.

SPEAKERS

Gráinne Lynch, Premsai Sainathan

Premsai Sainathan  00:08

Welcome to the Supply Chain Tech Podcast with Roambee. In this episode, we speak with Gráinne Lynch, the EU Serialization Lead for Manufacturing and Supply Chain Systems at Enterprise System Partners, an Accenture company, which is a leading information services provider for the pharmaceutical and biotech sector. Gráinne  shares some of the serialization and traceability challenges that the industry faces as it ramps up to distribute the COVID 19 vaccines in the new normal at an unprecedented scale and velocity. Gráinne, welcome to the Roambee Supply Chain Tech Podcast. You are a serialization and supply chain traceability expert. So I have a lot of questions for you today in this context, because the world is gearing up to ship the COVID 19 vaccines, which is at an unprecedented scale and challenge. And both of these topics are very relevant for the integrity of the vaccine and ensuring that it reaches everybody who deserves it and on time. So with that in context krania, what is serialization and why is it so important for the pharma chain of custody?

Gráinne Lynch  01:33

Well, good, good day to you, Prem, and thanks so much for inviting me along to have a chat with you today to be here. So as you have noted, huge amounts of challenge when it comes to clinical trials, scaling and manufacturing of COVID 19 vaccines and different kinds of vaccines and different kinds of pharmaceutical products that assist people in their recovery, and also huge challenges with the distribution of that so let’s talk about that distribution side. As you said, serialization in pharmaceutical terms has been around for more than a decade in the large markets, and it means literally putting a unique identifier on each and every unit of sale of a product, and it means that there’s a unique code that can be checked and authenticated, and it’s done in different ways in different markets, but the kinds of markets that are currently covered by that legislation include the United States of America, Europe, the EU, the 28 and soon to be 27 countries of the EU, countries like the kingdom, South Arabia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Brazil, etc. So there’s quite a difference around the the con the world, with the with countries that have implemented serialization legislation. The whole idea, though, that the product can be authenticated, usually using a scan gun at typically a point of sale or at point of dispense, so that whoever is getting the product, such as a patient or a healthcare provider in a hospital setting, can be reassured that the product that they’re administering to a patient, or that the patient is taking themselves, is authentic. So that authenticity is both is one layer with the code with a serial, serialized code, that unique code is one layer and one aspect of you know, there’s a couple of different other ways that you might reassure a patient or reassure buyers within the supply chain that a product is authentic. It’s just one, and it’s an important part of it. The challenges around COVID 19, though, in particular, when it comes to COVID 19, is that okay, while serialization can certainly assist with reassurance around the authenticity of the product. There are a number of other different challenges that are also rolled into COVID 19, the scale of distribution is absolutely incredibly important so and we have millions of people in each and every single country in the world, so in each jurisdiction in terms of public health distribution and public health considerations, where will the product be routed to? Will it be routed to high density population areas where the COVID, 19 virus is more likely to spread faster, or will it be routed to places for other types of reasons, such as at risk populations, such as people who are maybe older or have underlying conditions. So there’s an awful lot of metrics that need to be considered, both from a public and private health perspective, in terms of the distribution and the location and the geographies in which they go and. There is another consideration then, which is around temperature control during distribution. So a lot of the products that we’re seeing in development now have very, very stringent temperature control requirements. So what we’re seeing is a lot of those vaccines require distribution at minus 77 zero degrees centigrade, which is a huge challenge for the industry, especially at scale. So anything could be transported in small amounts. You know, if you can take a briefcase and you can put it onto a onto an airplane, and you can have a temperature control around that. But how do you do that at scale, and how do you do that time and time again and make sure that that’s going to be done. So, so once you’ve figured out where you’re going to deliver your product, and then you’re going to deliver it with the right kind of temperature control around it. So how do you, how do you then make sure that the product is authentic, and the serialization really comes into play at that point? And if you, if you can take, if you see a number of different pieces of information that help you, help you as the buyer of the product. So maybe we talk about buyers of products. Buyers of products can in COVID 19 vaccine. Sort of space are typically government organizations. Public health organizations will be buying at scale. They may be checking a number of different aspects about that whole distribution, including temperature, and also checking that the pallets the product has arrived in on is serialized and checked. And what serialization? I’m sorry, there’s a very long answer to your question, but what maybe we what could get into what serialization provides. It’s not just on unit of sale, but it can also be on cases and pallets. And you can, you can form and a relationship between units of sale within a case, and those cases on pallets through aggregation, which is an association with each of the pieces of information associated with those logistic levels. And that, therefore, then you can actually, if something is serialized right down to the unit level, and you’ve got, you’ve got a code on your palette, then it gives reassurance that you don’t have to check everything inside and not to make sure that it’s correct. So, so there’s, there’s a number of maybe opening kind of thoughts to maybe we can delve down into any one of them in a moment.

Premsai Sainathan  07:21

That’s great grania that gives gives us a good understanding of serialization. You said serialization is one layer. So when you talk about larger chain of custody, traceability, what are the key aspects that one needs to take in account, especially when it comes to the COVID 19 vaccine shipping. So is it just temperature, or are there also security risks? Are there risks of stock? Outs, what are all the factors that are going to affect?

Gráinne Lynch  07:53

Well, to be honest, so I don’t think really it’s going to be any particularly different to what we’re already seeing now in pharmaceutical supply chain. Any product that is high in high demand is at risk of counterfeit, and its risk at theft, and it’s at risk of of everything that we were already seeing in the supply chain. So those real practitioners in the supply chain that are looking after security are going to be very, very familiar with this space. Nothing different for them to worry about, sorry, except for the scale. So what we’re seeing in terms of change of chain of custody as part of the serialization legislation in the in the European Union, we have the requirement for wholesale distributors to become part of a an ecosystem of known distributors. So it’s an it’s an additional layer to to an authorized economic operator type of relationship. There has to be a known if a manufacturer is selling product to into the supply chain, into a wholesaler. That wholesaler must be registered and must be the shipment information from the manufacturer to the wholesaler must be between known parties, so that really helps with the chain of custody of the product. According to that particular legislation, if the wholesaler that sell to party is not known, then an additional verification is required and mandated by the law. So that helps, at least in some it helps to build a known chain of custody from organization to organization, and that’s that includes any wholesaler, distributors and third party logistics providers that you’re that has that touches the product along the supply chain. I think that’s a really strong chain of custody there, and it forces organizations to, of course, they know each other, but also to register against a database of known operators. Um. Please, go ahead. No, please, Prem.

Premsai Sainathan  10:04

Well, you’re talking about the chain of custody, and the need for it to be so tight, how many data points today in this chain of custody is probably manual, or what percentage of it is manual, and how much of it is actually automated? Because whenever there’s manual data coming in, even if it’s through a scan, there is a there is room for error, right? Yeah. So,

Gráinne Lynch  10:32

So all systems take a little bit of time to settle down, you know? And when it comes to serialization, is, seems to be it very often, is considered by the industry to be an additional burden in terms of system and process integration. The larger the large organizations, such as large wholesalers in different countries, will have very automated systems, and because they can scan at say, On receipt, probably into their facilities. Let’s talk about a wholesaler. Let’s say wholesaler can scan on receipt. They’re doing that anyway, the codes that they’re scanning with the serialization information inside of them. It’s either it’s either they’re scanning on a pallet, a serialized, serialized ship or container code in SSCC, they may be scanning that anyway. So at provided everything is aggregated within it with, if you have, if you have a homogenous shipment, a shipment with all the same kinds of products within it, it’s all the same, the same trade, trade unit within that shipment, then there’s very the systems are really quite agile now, and they really are able to handle that fairly well without too much manipulation manually. However, if you have a non homogenous shipment, if you have an organization that isn’t necessarily as large as some wholesalers, you might have a three PL that does specialize, say, white gloves, particular kind of operation, then the likelihood of having all of the different types of systems in place is lower. So therefore we are seeing the need for individual cases potentially to be scanned, and that adds an awful lot of time to each and every process. And it’s been a big challenge around the adoption of serialization globally is the amount of time it can sometimes take to scan things through your system as as a as an organization within the distribution chain. And not only is it a problem for them, but it’s also a problem for pharmacies and for hospitals. So typically, typically organizations within the supply chain, or they’re used to goods in goods out, receipt, in receipt, out, scan, scan. You know, finish things off. That’s their business. When it comes to hospitals, we are seeing quite a lot of pushback with regards to actually the and I’m talking specifically in the EU. In the EU, it is required for hospitals to to receive, to receive the product, and in terms of the legislation, it’s required for those products to be decommissioned upon dispensing, which means, basically, if you think about it, dispensing means that it’s going to be used by a patient. But there’s quite a journey when I get when a product comes into a hospital, and before it gets from a hospital to an actual patient in a bed, there could be quite a lot of storage constraints around that. There could be changes in the packaging. There could be, maybe there could be a package of 10 vials of a product, and each and 10 they could be going to 10 different patients. So there is a constraint and a challenge around the final step in terms of decommissioning within hospitals, because those hospitals don’t always have the processes in place and don’t always have the technologies in place, so that’s being worked on at the moment. Try and really thinking about this when it comes to COVID. 19 vaccines, vaccines at the current time in general, tend to be administered by healthcare professionals, either in Doctor surgeries, in clinics, sometimes in hospitals, but the they get really distributed, way out into into communities. They go, they go into these places and those communities won’t necessarily have the capability always for scanning and checking each and every single vaccine that comes in. So then there is going to be some sort of need at some point for a kind of mass authentication like more than one product, to authenticate more than one product at a time, to give that to continue with the that confidence that the product is authentic, to make sure that is authentic before it is administered to a patient. But doing that one by one, is going. To be extremely difficult. So, so my my thoughts on that is there’s probably going to be, need to be a kind of a stage prior to that, the consumption, or the, sorry, the dispensing of that vaccine product into the community that both upholds the understanding and the confidence that that product is a genuine and authentic product, because it’s serialized and the serialization code is correct, versus the amount of time and the technology required for it. So there’s probably going to be some sort of staging place required. So those kinds of conversations are ongoing within the industry at the moment.

Premsai Sainathan  15:42

Let’s talk about an instance where a hospital gets one of these products and either the serial number does not match, or there is some doubt on the chain of custody, or it’s A damaged product. What is the typical SOP or response that needs to be followed by the manufacturer and and the hospital when they know that there is a breach. Add one more question here. But I’d really like to understand what is what does that mean in terms of productivity as well? I mean, there are a lot of people who are going to be jumping on this problem. So is there a way to quantify that and look at it in terms of loss property as well?

Gráinne Lynch  16:30

Yeah, that’s a great question. So first of all, to the EU there the system of authentication when you When the scan is produced, needs to be checked against, needs to be checked against a national system for verification of that medicine before it’s dispensed. So if there’s any problem with it, there’s two issues, two things that need to be checked, the tamper evidence on the product needs to be checked, and that’s a visual inspection, typically. And if there’s any problem with that, there’s an issue. And then if the code is scanned, and somehow you get back, there’s a, you know, a potential, suspected counterfeit, then that product cannot be dispensed. So it’s, it could be loss. It’s certainly a loss in some way. It’s a loss of productivity. Let’s come back to that in just a second, because you’ve asked about that. In particular, the manufacturer gets notified that there’s a potential problem, and there’s a requirement for an investigation to take place to get to the root cause of that issue. Let’s come back to the productivity right there and then. So each scan obviously takes time. Typically, an SOP will require that that these these are done. We’re hearing that there’s that there are full time equivalent individuals need near needed to be added to tap, to work forces, at least one person just to for each and every location where these work, places, where, where this work is done. It’s an additional person. So we’re hearing that in the systems are there, but it is actually causing quite a lot of additional work. Let me in terms of productivity and productivity loss, there is, there’s, I’m not sure if I would think of it in terms of productivity loss, or really think about it in terms of authenticity gain. Certainly there. It’s taking more time and effort, for sure, and it really just depends where you are in the world, whether or not organizations think that that is actually worth it, depending on the risk of where those products are coming from in the first place, an awful lot of countries in the world are at severe risk of counterfeit products, and a lot of countries and a lot of regions of the world are not at risk. Where the risk is low. You tend to have a lot of people complaining about the the the additional loss of productivity, or the additional cost of the full time equivalent resources that they have to add to their teams, because the risk is low. Anyway, in other countries where that where, where the where, where we’re seeing that there is heightened problems with these issues. There are very often challenges around SOPs and productivity anyway, so serialization on its own is a really important step to help curb um counterfeit. But it’s not a silver bullet by any means. So I’m not too sure if that really has answered your question, Prem, but let’s dig into that a little bit deeper if you want.

Premsai Sainathan  19:32

Absolutely. Gráinne, so to your point, I would understand if you are shipping, say, full truck load, and that full truck load has has some evidence of pamper. Let’s, let’s. Let’s take that example. What does the pharma company need to actually do now in terms of response, action of. On to that Tampa, although a bunch of goods have arrived, which means that there is a chance that the the same boxes that got loaded, loaded onto the truck, have actually arrived, or it could have been that a few boxes were actually taken out, and, you know, some counterfeit drugs were put in there. And once they scan the scan the codes, and they figure out that there, there is, there is even one mismatch out of, say, 100 boxes, what are the steps that typically get initiated, and who all gets involved in this whole ecosystem? And that happens? Okay,

Gráinne Lynch  20:42

Yeah, great question. So let’s say we’re talking about a shipment, full truck load shipment which is in the custody, which is in the physical presence of a third party logistics provider, but is still in the ownership of a manufacturer. So in that case, there are a lot of SOPs procedures that are already in existence for handling issues like this, and typically, this is what I’ve seen manufacturers will rely on their third party logistics provider to initiate SOPs around suspected issues that are arising, such as, you know, they’ve seen a seal on a container being broken, and there is a maybe, there is something in a sensor highlighting that the product was or the truck maybe had been parked in a place where it shouldn’t have been for, you know, 20 minutes during its Journey from one location to another location, and so the data of the sensors, maybe within that truck are pointing to a potential issue. Well, serialization, in this particular case, is maybe only one small aspect of what you’re going to do. You know, all of the procedures that have already existed around suspected issues around security are going to kick into place. So third party logistics provider will either highlight this issue to a manufacturer or maybe manufacturer, depending on the type of way that they’re monitoring this kind of shipment may see this within their own real time dashboards being reported as a potential issue. So maybe we have a flag going off or an alert appearing in a monitoring scenario. Either that alert is because the seal is broken on the truck, or because there is an unplanned and or unscheduled stoppage of that truck on its journey from origin to destination. So something has flagged an issue once that once the truck is within the control of the third party logistics provider, maybe within their facility at the destination, an investigation is going to kick off. The manufacturer will be informed. Manufacturer may be requested to send some representative to the at least, to oversee the situation. Very often that someone within the supply chain transport organization of that manufacturer, somebody who has the relationship with that third party logistics provider, they may go and fit, and typically they’re going to want to see this. So they’re going to go on to see maybe the break on the seal, or maybe the break on the multiple seals on that full truck load. Potentially, we have quite a few and see and inspect what’s have happened, and they’ll delve into the data, and they’re going to want to see who you know. What was the situation? What was the driver? What happened for the unscheduled break? Why was it unplanned? Where was it? What were the risk factors associated with it? Was there any issue in terms of the temperature sensing in that space. Were there any big geo related issues? Was there any our sensors? I’m sure the sensors there can detect if there was a shunting of that product in any way, there was a G force kind of event that might have occurred. They look at the data. They look into the data and really delve into it to try and find root causes in that. What tends to happen with that, if there’s any issue, if that, if that product is suspected as being damaged in any way, it’s very, very often that that product within the pharmaceutical supply chain will be, will be destroyed, because you cannot be assured of the authenticity of the product. So that’s very often the case. It would be returned to the manufacturer, and then it will go into quarantine. It will be investigated, and potentially, if there is a problem, if there is, if there, if there is a if the data is pointing to the fact that there actually was an issue, then the product would be destroyed. Then, of course, we’re going to have a knock on effect about risk managing that route from there on in, and maybe some trust issues with that third party logistics provider that will then you’ll have your SLAs with the relationship with the third party provider being questioned, and potentially, potentially. Loss of contract, and certainly loss certainly an impact on the trust between your organizations I’m under. I’m sure I’ve less left out an awful lot of things that happened there. But let’s say there’s no issue. Let’s say that there’s a very explainable problem with that interruption. Maybe there is a seal broken, but it was a maybe a mechanical fault in some way on the seal, unlikely. But anyway, let’s say it is and it’s discovered, then you can still check, as you say, you can go down to the palette, into the case, and even take a sample of the units, and if they are all checking out and everything is okay, it really gives confidence that the that watcher that so it’s okay. Seals get broken all the time in transport. You’ve got GeForce issues, you’ve got temperature issues. All of these things are pretty normal. What doesn’t tend to happen without intent for for within a sort of in the intent of doing something wrong, we don’t really see in any interruption to the codes on the boxes. So if there’s an interruption or a suspicion or duplication or anything, or if there’s any change between what was shipped out of the manufacturing facility, what was received in that third party logistics providers facility, if there’s any change in the serialization, we know there is definitely an issue at play that is intentionally disruptive, and that’s different to what you might see there in other sort of more mechanical issues around seals and everything. So I think what it really does point to is that it really gives you a sense of like, okay, was this? Is this? Is this a problem? That was is it?

Premsai Sainathan  26:45

Is it a problem? Is it? Is it? Is it something that could have just happened, but the goods are not affected? Or is it something, if

Gráinne Lynch  26:56

This problem with the serialization, then it’s an intentional infringement. There’s an something, something go wrong. There’s a there’s an intentional theft, a diversion, something else happening. So it really, I mean, it really points, maybe more specifically, to an issue, rather than some of the other data points that we might collect during a transport journey.

Premsai Sainathan  27:16

How is this going to pan out in the COVID 19 vaccine distribution, because you talked about the scale of it, right? And there are pharma companies security personnel and the quality team is always involved with lot of these exceptions, you know, validating whether it’s truly something to be worried about or it’s it’s false red flag when it comes to scale, and you’re actually going to be working with a lot of new third party logistics partners. You’re going to be shipping to a lot of new regions. Do you think that the pharma companies are prepared for this challenge at scale? And if not, what is it they can do between now to when the big loads of vaccines start going out, to prepare themselves to handle a lot more excursion simply because the volumes

Gráinne Lynch  28:18

So opening up new markets and selling new product into new markets takes years of planning on behalf of pharmaceutical companies in general, in general and in normal times. So I don’t, I don’t think that the world is really ready, in in its entirety, to really get everything absolutely correct. No one organization is ready. Let me rephrase, definitely, no one organization is ready. But collectively, collectively manufacturers know how to manufacture, they’re going to have enough problems just trying to manufacture at scale. And I really think that the relationships with third party logistics providers, freight forwarders and carriers that have expertise in air, in rail, in maritime transport and in truck haulage, those are the people that have expertise in that organ, in that space, and then distributors, in terms of pharmaceutical distributors, hospitals, etc, Everybody knows what the need to do for vaccines. What needs to happen is a collective recognition of what people do well, and partnerships to be really solidified around the mission of distribution, because no one organization is going to be able to do all of it, and I absolutely see a huge requirement for the technology play in this space. Because when you have new partners, as you say, new partners working with each other, sure they’ve done it before, and as they do things at scale, you’re going to see much more shipments, as you know, different markets, etc. So the trust between the different organizations may not have as much. Much time to develop as ordinary. And as you say, with volume, you have greater issues for human error. So therefore, I think really that technology layer is going to be really, really key that we need to, we need to get the right sensors in the right shipments. We need to be monitoring this. We need to put we need to train people to monitor shipments in real time. We need to train them to understand what the messages are saying, what the events they’re saying and what cumulative events may be pointing to. We need to we need to really try to understand what has happened from previous experiences along particular transport routes. We need to understand what particular, what particular physical locations within a region might be at risk from floods, from at times, at certain times of the year? What might be at risk at high temperature, for high temperature or low temperature? What? What? Where are the inefficiencies within different transport nodes that might cause problems for ongoing shipment, and that can be relied on from historical data that’s built up by organizations from previous experience, but no So, but let’s, let’s say an organization like Rome B will have an experience about from history, collected from history around and a perspective on on something working with the third party logistics companies to maybe, or to know, add their experience into it, add their data points, and history is going to be really key. And it’s not a No, I know. It’s not something that actually works particularly easily, to be honest with you. I mean, we’ve all been around this for decades, and the transport chain has really been, it’s been. How do I say this? There’s, there’s an awful lot of places within a transport and logistics distribution chain where things can go wrong, and always do go wrong, there’s so many opportunities for bad actors to come in and, you know, disrupt or steal product, and it happens on a daily basis. So there’s no reason to think that it’s not going to continue to happen. What needs what needs to happen is that the organizations that really want to get stuff delivered to where it needs to go need to start sharing data with each other to make better decisions about the transport routes and to highlight issues as they arise along those transport routes. So traditionally, in places where trust may not have existed, we have to figure out a way for trust to become based on the data that can be shared collectively across the supply chain, from manufacturers to destination, in an ideal world. But I think actually, actually, really, really needs to happen to do anything fast we can do it. We have all the information we need provided we share it. Yes.

Premsai Sainathan  33:02

And what I think is really resonating to me, grania, from what you’re talking about, is that one is so serialization is very important. It’s been there for about 10 or 20 years. But with COVID, the whole challenge is all about scale. It’s about the unknown. It’s about the new transport partners. It’s about this not it’s about the scale 10x the number of exceptions that you’re going to be going to be dealing with. So everything needs to be figured out in real time. Technology is key, not only visibility technologies like Roambee, but also blockchain, also technologies that give you the give you the authenticity on the chain of custody, both digital and physical, and the collaborative nature of that data, which you mentioned, which is the manufacturer needs to share data with the three PL, vice versa. And then the manufacturer and the three PL need to be collaborating on the data with the hospitals, because they are the wholesalers. So who are the who all form the entire ecosystem? So growing, yeah, in that context, what are the what’s the biggest questions that your clients are posing to you about the challenges, and what is the final takeaway that you would like to provide when it comes to two things, serialization and supply chain traceability in the COVID 19 vaccine context,

Gráinne Lynch  34:44

No pressure. So the first question, the largest challenges that we’re seeing really, is that a lot of people, a lot of organizations, can really see this challenge, and a lot of organizations. Patients just aren’t ready. From a technological point of view, they either don’t have the procedures in place and they don’t have the technology to support the procedures. So that’s maybe, that’s what I’m that’s what I’m seeing and hearing, and that’s a very generic description of what’s going on, but that’s one of the biggest issues. It’s it’s that the, you know, the physicals, the scanners, aren’t in place, the the relationships between the organizations aren’t well established, and the information, the information that may need to be transported between them, isn’t automated. Just hopefully, that answers the first question, yes, even if it’s not particularly detailed answer, the takeaways for serialization are in different places in the world. Serialization isn’t always required. It is a burden. It’s an additional requirement on to what, also what is already quite a difficult thing to manufacture, which is a pharmaceutical product or a vaccine. So I think it’s worth putting it on. I think it’s I think that the I think that once organizations start to look at the data that they can get out as a result of having serialized product in a marketplace, and that’s still growing, that the benefit will be more clear and more well established. And I absolutely think that aggregation, as in the association between a unit of sale, it’s in its various different logistics elements, be that a bundle or a case, and ultimately, a pallet is absolutely a base requirement for making sure that the investment in serialization is going to be, you know, it can be, can be a return on it, and that return may not be in terms of money, but it may be in terms of additional data visibility in terms of Route visibility and in terms of understanding where your product is going and potentially closing off gas gaps and closing off risks in your supply chain, aggregation is an absolute base requirement, so that’s a takeaway for for our chat.

Premsai Sainathan  37:19

Excellent. Gráinne, thank you so much for taking part in this podcast. It was very informative. We learned about serialization in detail. We learned about how it’s going to apply in the COVID context. We learned about the unique challenges of COVID and but then last but more most important is how we can gear up very fast through aggregation, through collaboration of data, both physical and traditional data. One last

Gráinne Lynch  37:51

Thing standard standards have to have standardization across all of that landscape.

Premsai Sainathan  37:58

So what do you mean by standardization? Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Gráinne Lynch  38:06

Yes. So at the current time, GS one is the global standardized body for assisting the pharmaceutical supply chain and pharmaceutical partners to with a unique code, follows a standard. The codes and units of sale, the codes on pallets, bundles, etc, follow a standard, and the the unit of sale is a trade item which is identified by a Global Trade Item number, which is called a cheating and they it makes sure that they’re unique. So with standards in place, you can make sure that your identifiers are unique, that there’s no overlap in them that helps with authenticating, and they’re unique within Of course, you know a certain time frame. You know, it’s not going to be unique forever and ever, until the end of the world or anything there. You know, there’s a limit to the numbers. But you know, within a normal situation, also the way that the messages are passed between different organizations also follow a standard, which is an EPCIS standard, and it’s to do with how goods are shipped from to different parties. And once we have unique identifications that follow a standard and a message that follows a standard, it makes it easier to connect to different partners throughout the supply chain. So that’s really important, and GS one is the body that one can go to to find out more information.

Premsai Sainathan  39:49

Wonderful Gráinne. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today, and look forward to talking to you sometime again in the future. Thanks, Brian.

Gráinne Lynch  39:58

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Bye, bye.

Scott Mears  40:01

Hi, my name is Scott Mears, and I’m one of the hosts of the Supply Chain Tech Podcast with Roambee. On this podcast we talk to supply chain heroes from around the world about everything, ranging from the disruptions related to supply chains, their personal experiences with tracking technologies, strategies to build resilience, and much, much more. We already have some recommended videos for you to the side of me, and if any of this sounds interesting to you, do subscribe to our Youtube channel and hit the bell icon so you don’t miss another Roambee video. I’ll see you next time.