Distribution Systems Research Institute (DSRI) was established in 1972 to realize the efficient supply chain of goods. In 1977, Distribution Code Center-Japan (DCC-Japan) was established within DSRI.
DCC-Japan joined the European Article Numbering Association (later called EAN International, and now, the GS1) in 1978 as its Japanese representative organization. We have been an active member eversince.

In November 2002, the Uniform Code Council (UCC) and the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada (ECCC) joined EAN International. As a result, EAN International became one and only global standards organization in the field of commerce. In 2005, EAN International changed its name to GS1 as it moved into a new era with new organizational structure. Accordingly, we changed the name of DCC-Japan to GS1 Japan in January 2005.
In the fall of 2003, EPCglobal, Inc. was established to standardize and run operations for a newly developed system that combined RFID and Internet technologies. As the organization's operations began, we also created EPCglobal Japan within DSRI in January 2004.

In addition to allocating and managing the GS1 Company Prefix and the GLN for traditional sectors, we are increasing our efforts to expand this service to new sectors, such as healthcare, public utility payment systems and eCommerce; and we are also promoting various services to improve the supply chain such as collecting and providing POS data, and managing product catalogues.
Furthermore, as an organization supporting the EPCglobal Network System in Japan, we promote the system domestically and participate in international standardization activities.

We also play a key role in a Japanese Government project sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to create new EDI business message standards for consumer packaged goods that was released in April 2007. We aim to expand this new standard to other products such as apparel goods and perishable fresh food. Promoting the synchronization of the master data is another important part of this project.

Internationally, we participate in the Global Standard Management Process run by GS1, and contribute to standardization of supply chain of various goods.

GS1 Japan and EPCglobal Japan participate in the standardization process as a member of GS1 and EPCglobal, We also promote in Japan the application and utilization of the standards developed by these organizations to streamline Japanese EDI and supply chain systems.