Having accurate and consistent product master data is a foundation to allowing many other ECR practices to take place. Today, the sad truth is that master data is not consistent along the supply chain despite the large costs that both manufacturers and retailers expend on maintaining it.
The Global Data Synchronization vision: how it works
There are two primary ways in which data is synchonized: through inter-operable data pools and through peer-to-peer systems. The diagrams below show the components of each:
One to many data synchronization through interoperable data pools
and peer to peer global standards-based synchronization
There are four key components in any standards-based item synchronization model:
Single item registry - A global, industrywide repository where manufacturers register their trade items by standardized classifications. Retailers can access core item information through the registry. The registry acts as a "telephone book" to look up products and suppliers and to identify where item information is held.
Data pool/catalogue - Under a standards-based approach, a data pool in an electronic catalogue of standardized item and price data, or a pass-through service of standardized information used to facilitate data exchange between trading partners. A data pool can be maintained either externally or by a third party or internally as part of an integration engine or collaborative product information management (CPIM) system. Value-added services (eg. Normalization of data formats) may be performed by data pools.
Publication and synchronization engine - The engine publishes information from the supplier to the retailer and verifies that updates to item information are accurately communicated between trading partners. In many cases, the data pool will incorporate synchronization functionality and manage the information update process.
Integration engine / collaborative product information manager - Some models make use of an internally maintained integration engine of CPIM system, and a separate, external data pool. The CPIM aggregates data from multiple geographic and organizational databases into an internal master catalogue. Information can then be cleansed and standardized, making it ready to be used by trading partners. A CPIM system can also customize data for specific partners, which is particularly useful in cases where a retailer requires additional product information beyond that defined by the core item standards.
