UFPC Bar Coding Project
Bar coding is a mature technology in the retail environment, where it has facilitated self-serve checkouts and tracked store-level inventory for over a quarter century. Today, Unified Foodservice Purchasing Co-op®, LLC (UFPC®) and Yum! Brands, Inc. are working to use this technology to improve data capture and create efficiencies in the supply chain. Bar codes containing information about when and where a product was produced can be attached to cases and pallets on the production line. Once the product ships to a distribution center, that same bar code can be scanned, supplying a trail of information about how a particular product moves through the system. Capturing this level of supply chain data will allow us to react quickly to changes in today’s distribution environment.
History
In 2005, UFPC formed a cross-functional, cross-concept team to outline a multi-year project with an initial objective to add bar codes to proprietary food, packaging and equipment pallets and cases at the supplier.
The project’s first phase had two parts:
- Setting a bar code specification to meet global standards for the Yum! Brands system as part of the outer-case labeling requirements.
- Implementing the standard on 95 percent or more of the system’s proprietary cases by July 31, 2008.
2008 saw these plans become reality with the successful completion of these first two goals. Approximately 97 percent of the cases moving through our supply chain now carry a standardized, Yum! Brands-approved and documented bar code. We are leading the QSR industry by being the first major restaurant system to accomplish this. In fact, the standards we set are quickly being adopted as the preferred industry standard.
Next Steps
With bar codes on our system’s cases, we will accomplish the following phases in 2009:
- Distributor Partners: Assessing capability, determining requirements and aligning on how they will use the information we can now capture electronically.
- In-Store: Exploring how to optimize the technological benefits at the store level.
In developing action steps to accomplish these next two phases, we will continue to work with Yum! Brands, suppliers, distributors and operators to help ensure that we are meeting the needs of all of our concept co-op members.
Questions about the UFPC/Yum! Brands bar code initiative? Please e-mail us at: barcode@ufpc.com.
For information on the UFPC/Yum Bar Coding procedures, please click here.