In the past decade, the global supply chains have been transformed from one-to-one linear communications to many-to-many virtual partnerships. Global manufacturers, retailers, logistics service providers, government policy bureaus are devoting significant resources to streamline these evolving complexities across different industries and continents. Although internet and various e-marketplaces have been populated as defacto ways of most parties to tackle the challenges brought by such transformation, real-time tracking and tracing, automatic synchronization of product information and physical goods flows are the best practices that most companies are still striving to pursue. After years of study at the MIT Auto-ID Center funded by the global industry leaders and non-profit standard body EAN International, in 2003, Electronic Product Code (EPC) was formally established as the global standard for radio frequency identifications application that enhances end-to-end supply chain visibility. This paper is prepared by the local representative body of EPCglobal in Hong Kong to demonstrate how business partners and government can benefit from this emerging tool known as the Internet of Things'.
展开▼