GS1 Connect® 2017 will feature presenters from more than 50 leading corporations including Google Manufacturer Center, Mondelēz, Pfizer and Target over the course of the three-day conference and exhibit to be held June 20-22, 2017, at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, NV. This year’s theme, “Collaborating for Business Excellence,” reflects the role of GS1 Standards in bringing industry communities together for business process innovation. 

“Entire industries are being challenged to evolve their organizations and meet new business, regulatory and consumer demands. GS1 Connect provides attendees with the opportunity to learn best practices for implementing GS1 Standards to support this shift and drive positive business outcomes,” says Bob Carpenter, president and CEO of GS1 US®. 

A popular feature each year, GS1 Connect 2017 will again offer “How to Do Business With…” sessions and Trading Partner Roundtables hosted by major brands and retailers, providing suppliers an opportunity to learn about business process requirements. Additional highlights from the five main conference tracks include: 

Grocery: Session topics include on-shelf availability, case-level labeling, SmartLabelTM, food traceability, and managing digital content in grocery. Speakers will include experts from Ahold USA, J.M Smucker Company, Kroger, Mondelēz, SUPERVALU, Unilever, Wakefern and Wegmans. 

Retail: Sessions will focus on inventory accuracy, solving for returns, optimizing order-to-cash business processes, leveraging item-level RFID, and product images and attribute consistency. This track will include speakers from Genesco, J. Reneé, the Libman Company, Longevity Brands, L’Oréal, National Gypsum and Target. 

Foodservice: Session topics include improving operational efficiency, case-level traceability, data quality and the power of product attributes. Speakers will include experts from DineEquity, EcoLab, Gordon Food Service, US Foods and Wendy’s Quality Supply Chain Co-Op. 

Healthcare: Sessions will address supply chain data in clinical systems, efficiency in contracts and chargeback processes, requirements of the U.S. FDA Unique Device Identification (UDI) rule and the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), and RFID in healthcare. This track will include speakers from Centrastate, Johnson & Johnson, Mercy and Pfizer. 

Standards & Solutions: Sessions will address strategic planning, product identification for e-commerce, interactive packaging, blockchain and private labeling. This track will include speakers from 3M, Google Manufacturer Center, Merial and SCA. 

The “Standardsville” exhibit area and Tech Track offer ample networking opportunities with solution providers and vendors. GS1 US University certificate courses and workshops are also available for those looking to build their foundational knowledge of GS1 Standards. 

Each year, GS1 Connect is attended by more than 1,300 industry professionals seeking to learn about the application of GS1 Standards to address today’s most pressing business challenges. The conference and exhibit is geared toward executives, directors, and managers in customer service/relations, electronic data interchange (EDI), finance, information technology (IT), e-commerce, marketing, materials handling, operations, packaging, quality/safety/compliance, supply chain management and transportation/logistics.

GS1 Connect 2017 is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, Sato America, Blue Software, Cybra, Edgenet, Edict Systems, Intertrade and SML. To view the full agenda and speaker lineup, or to register, visit www.gs1connect.org.