EPCIS, or Electronic Product Code Information Services, is a global data-sharing standard developed by GS1 that lets different software systems create and share information about where products are and what’s happening to them as they move through a supply chain. Think of it as a common language that companies use to record and exchange events like “1,000 pounds of lettuce left this warehouse at 9:26 AM on April 15th, headed to this distribution center.” It’s the backbone of what the industry calls “supply chain visibility.”
The Problem EPCIS Solves
Every company in a supply chain uses different software. A manufacturer’s warehouse system doesn’t naturally talk to a retailer’s inventory system, which doesn’t talk to a logistics provider’s tracking platform. Without a shared standard, getting a simple answer to “where is my shipment right now?” means phone calls, emails, and spreadsheets.
EPCIS gives all of these systems a common format for recording and sharing what happened to a product. A pharmaceutical manufacturer, a wholesale distributor, and a hospital pharmacy can all exchange the same type of event data without custom integration between each pair of systems. The standard works both within a single company (connecting its own departments) and across trading partners.
The Five Dimensions of an EPCIS Event
Every EPCIS event captures five key pieces of information:
- What: Which products or items are involved, identified by standardized codes.
- When: The exact date, time, and time zone of the event.
- Where: The physical location where it happened and, if different, the location where the items are now being held.
- Why: The business context, such as whether the event was a shipment, a receipt, a production step, or an inspection.
- How: Additional conditions like temperature readings or other sensor data (added in version 2.0).
Together, these dimensions give you a complete picture of any supply chain event without ambiguity.
What an EPCIS Event Looks Like
An EPCIS event is a structured data record. Here’s a simplified real-world example in JSON format, recording the creation of a batch of product:
The record specifies that this is an “ObjectEvent” that took place on April 15, 2025, at 9:26 AM Eastern time. It identifies the business step as “creating a class instance” (meaning a new batch was produced), notes the physical location using a standardized identifier, links the event to a production order, and records that 1,000 pounds of a specific product lot were created. Every field uses standardized codes so that any system reading this record interprets it the same way.
Not Just for RFID
The name includes “Electronic Product Code,” which traces back to EPCIS’s origins in RFID-based tracking. But the standard has evolved well beyond that. EPCIS is data-carrier neutral, meaning it works with GS1 barcodes, QR codes, and RAIN RFID tags equally well. The “EPC” in the name is now more of a legacy label than a technical limitation. Any method you use to identify a product can feed data into an EPCIS system.
EPCIS 2.0 and Modern Formats
The latest version, EPCIS 2.0, modernized the standard significantly. Earlier versions relied primarily on XML and SOAP-based web services, which were functional but heavy. Version 2.0 added JSON and JSON-LD data formats alongside REST-based interfaces, making it much easier to integrate with modern web applications and APIs. It also introduced support for sensor data, so events can now include readings like temperature, humidity, or weight collected by IoT devices during transit or storage.
These updates made EPCIS accessible to a much wider range of developers and systems. A small food producer using a cloud-based platform can now exchange the same standardized event data as a multinational pharmaceutical company running enterprise software.
How Data Flows In and Out
EPCIS defines two main operations. The capture interface is how event data gets into the system. When a scanner reads a barcode at a loading dock, or an RFID reader detects tagged cases entering a warehouse, that data is pushed into the EPCIS repository through HTTP or message queue connections. The query interface is how applications pull data back out, either on demand (“show me all events for this product lot”) or through standing subscriptions that push notifications when new matching events arrive.
Companies can also package events into EPCIS documents and transmit them directly to a trading partner, point to point, without a centralized repository in between.
Regulatory Use in Pharmaceuticals and Food
EPCIS plays a central role in two major U.S. regulatory frameworks. The FDA recommends EPCIS as the standard for exchanging transaction data under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), which requires pharmaceutical companies to track prescription drugs at the package level from manufacturer to dispenser. The FDA’s guidance states that using EPCIS “can support and enable electronic and interoperable interfaces used by trading partners to help ensure compliance with the DSCSA requirements.” While it stops short of making EPCIS the only option, the FDA explicitly recommends it as the technological approach for data capture and exchange.
For food, the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Rule 204 requires companies handling certain high-risk foods to maintain detailed traceability records. The FDA built its Product Tracing System to automatically process uploaded data into EPCIS format for interoperability. Using EPCIS isn’t mandatory for compliance with the food traceability rule, but the FDA’s own system runs on it, which sends a clear signal about the direction of the industry.
Why Businesses Invest in It
The core value of EPCIS is turning a supply chain from a series of disconnected handoffs into a visible, traceable flow. With standardized event data, companies can pinpoint exactly where a shipment is delayed, identify which stores received a recalled product lot within minutes instead of days, and verify that products are authentic by checking their chain of custody back to the source.
Inventory accuracy improves because systems can reconcile what was shipped against what was received using matching event records. Counterfeiting becomes harder when every legitimate product has a verifiable trail of events from production to point of sale. And when a recall happens, the ability to trace affected products to specific locations, quickly and precisely, can be the difference between pulling items from three stores and pulling them from three thousand.
These aren’t hypothetical benefits. A 2011 Aberdeen study found that 78% of chief supply chain officers identified improving extended supply chain visibility as a top priority, and EPCIS remains the primary GS1 standard designed to deliver exactly that.