Thursday, November 12, 2020

Quick Thoughts on HDA's EPCIS Implementation Guidance....

Quick thoughts on the EPCIS implementation strategy released by the HDA in September... (https://www.hda.org/~/media/pdfs/government-affairs/position-statements/2020-09-29-getting-ready-for-epcis.ashx)

Few important highlights for me, with one being especially timely given my last post regarding the necessity for options centered around open governance industry networks.

Currently, EPCIS is the only internationally recognized standard that will meet these DSCSA requirements. 

Always good to to see the commitment to standards and specifically EPCIS.   Yet still amazing how many current connections across the industry (and even new connections continue to be established) which either do not use EPCIS or use a non-compliant EPCIS structure.

An additional complicating factor is that given the many supply chain entities that must meet the DSCSA’s 2023 requirements, competition for the services of the limited number of experts and consultants to advise on EPCIS execution will be keen. We anticipate a very high demand for this expertise -- potentially limiting trading partners’ ability to obtain the timely help they need just as they face the DSCSA’s critical deadline.  

Of course as a consultant myself I have to biasedly agree with this.     But, in my opinion, the real importance of this statement is not that I'm going to be busy the next 3 years, but rather what am I going to be busy doing?    My guess is most people read that paragraph and think "Yea think of all the connections that have to be set up between every manufacturer and their wholesalers and the wholesalers and pharmacy/hospitals.   Yikes that's a lot of work!!!"

And in fact that's exactly where the HDA guidance continues to....

At the outset, the bulk of this implementation will center on each manufacturer achieving successful EPCIS data exchange with each of its wholesale distributor trading partners. 

We encourage each pair of manufacturer and wholesale distributor trading partners to work together to establish a joint implementation plan for EPCIS execution that builds in adequate time for putting the necessary infrastructure in place, evaluating data quality, onboarding, testing, and stabilization.

And here is where my opinion starts to diverge...

The statement above sends a very clear message to the industry that we will follow the same path as we've been on for the past 10+ years...spending the dollars and resources to set up connections between each partner.   As I said in my last post- if that is the direction the industry chooses to go then c'est la vie.   I wish the guidance here wouldn't explicitly assume that's the best path forward....

My central point is-  We will have missed the boat again if we spend the next 3 years setting up integrations between each trading partner.   Those dollars and resource time should instead be allocated to deploying an open, industry governed collaborative network  (and no, despite whatever claims might be made, none of the traditional solutions/vendors fit this mold today).    Take the learnings from the last 10 years- recognize the good parts but also own up to the bad parts- and simply just look to improve over the next 3 years...staying on the same path isn't improvement....   As stated in my last post- that's the industry's call to action.....   

But there also is a call to action for solution providers.....   In HDA's defense, it would have been hard to even make reference to an open industry network in this guidance because, frankly, we havent heard nearly enough about them yet..... The messaging is starting, as we saw from the Linux Foundation announcement last month, but we need more info, more education and more tangible understanding of exactly how such a network operates and can meet the needs of 2023.... and we need all of that ASAP.

My view is, at a bare minimum, we at least owe ourselves the time/effort to more deeply consider the open network concept before assuming its not an option at all....So while I fully agree that it will take a lot of work to achieve 2023 compliance I hope that work is focused on the right efforts...



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