Customer Case Study

J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. was founded in 1902 by James Cash Penney and today engaged in marketing apparel, home furnishings, jewelry, cosmetics, and cookware. The company now operates roughly 1,000 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Headquarters are in Plano, Texas.

Challenge

JCPenney was an earlier adopter of EDI transactions and recognized the importance of receiving off the 856 Advanced Ship Notice. Supplier enablement was internally managed supplier and their in-house enablement team successfully assisted suppliers with the electronic transactions, but were challenged with assisting suppliers with GS1-128 carton labels. At the same time, the JCPenney’s automated PEPS distribution centers were forced to re-label 45% of every incoming shipment due to barcode label issues. Efficient receipt become even more important as JCPenney started opening regional Store Support Centers (SSC). Although their in-house enablement team successfully assisted suppliers with the electronic transactions, their supply chain was still experiencing GS1-128 carton labels to read the first time in their scanning environment.

Solution

Following a model successfully implemented by other comparable retailers, Bar Code Graphics established a program to enable JCPenney suppliers the resources to comply with their GS1-128 labels and also support supply chain disruptions. Our work on this project included;

• Authoring new GS1-128 barcode guidelines which are harmonized with the GS1 General Specifications and provide suppliers a blueprint to facilitate compliance
• A certification program for each GS1-128 label formate for each supplier ship location
• Establish a dedicated testing portal for JCPenney to manage certification and compliance management
• Created a model for reporting and analyzing GS1-128 supply chain issues
• Implementing an education initiative within supplier compliance for GS1-128 lab infractions and consequential re-certification program
• Systematic programming linking barcode compliance data/image to the JCPenney supplier scorecard
• Established compliance support program for barcoded and RFID tickets

Results

Today, JCPenney supplier compliance and logistic departments now rely on Bar Code Graphics to address all GS1-128 label issues. GS1-128 label certification through Bar Code Graphics is integrated with vendor on-boarding and existing suppliers are now proactively re-certifying shipping labels whenever they make changes to their hardware, software or print media. Barcode re-certification is also tied directly to GS1-128 compliance infractions so suppliers can rapidly correct mistakes and reduce providing JC Penney supply chain with non-compliant shipping labels. JCPenney has integrated Bar Code Graphics testing services with their Catalog, Furniture, Retail, and Import channels.