BRUSSELS , Belgium /LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ , – November 27, 2006 – On November 10, 2006, the University of St. Gallen in partnership with the Institute for Commercial Information Technology organised the Value Chain Forum 2006 in Germany , Friedrichshafen .

      The Best Case Award was given to GEPIR for a successful electronic linkage of companies and its partners via a network using new technologies. In presence of the press, GEPIR was awarded as best case by a program committee of experts. Robert Schubenel, the “father” of the GEPIR network, received the award from Prof. Dr. Hubert Österle of the University of St. Gallen . “The jury was of the opinion that GEPIR is a successful example of an intercompany data service” said Prof. Dr. Österle.

     “The network is driven by local GS1 Organisations. Via the GEPIR network, they enable access to more than 1 million GS1 system users around the global” explained Robert Schubenel to the assembly.

      The reasons for attributing the award were as follows: GEPIR is a successful example of a data service that links companies in different sectors and geographies. Besides consumer goods industry GEPIR is actively used in other sectors. GEPIR is based on a federative approach and proves that the future belong to this way of making data accessible.

      As Robert Schubenel has pointed out, GEPIR is the solution for the future: “If we now connect existing technologies such as a mobile phone scanning a bar-code and GEPIR for retrieving information from GEPIR for consumers, we are faced with completely new ways of communicating. “

In the future, the consumer would be able to ‘speak’ directly to the manufacturer and receive information about products through his mobile phone.