This document is a GS1 standard that defines Version 1.2 of EPC Information Services (EPCIS). The goal of EPCIS is to enable disparate applications to create and share visibility event data, both within and across enterprises. Ultimately, this sharing is aimed at enabling users to gain a shared view of physical or digital objects within a relevant business context.

EPCIS provides open, standardised interfaces that allow for seamless integration of well-defined services in inter-company environments as well as within companies. Standard interfaces are defined in the EPCIS standard to enable visibility event data to be captured and queried using a defined set of service operations and associated data standards, all combined with appropriate security mechanisms that satisfy the needs of user companies. In many or most cases, this will involve the use of one or more persistent databases of visibility event data, though elements of the Services approach could be used for direct application-to-application sharing without persistent databases.

With or without persistent databases, the EPCIS specification specifies only a standard data sharing interface between applications that capture visibility event data and those that need access to it. It does not specify how the service operations or databases themselves should be implemented. This includes not defining how the EPCIS services should acquire and/or compute the data they need, except to the extent the data is captured using the standard EPCIS capture operations. The interfaces are needed for interoperability, while the implementations allow for competition among those providing the technology and implementing the standard.

EPCIS is intended to be used in conjunction with the GS1 Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) standard [CBV1.2]. The CBV standard provides definitions of data values that may be used to populate the data structures defined in the EPCIS standard. The use of the standardised vocabulary provided by the CBV standard is critical to interoperability and critical to provide for querying of data by reducing the variation in how different businesses express common intent. Therefore, applications should use the CBV standard to the greatest extent possible in constructing EPCIS data.

The companion EPCIS and CBV Implementation Guideline [EPCISGuideline] provides additional guidance for building visibility systems using EPCIS and CBV, including detailed discussion of how to model specific business situations using EPCIS/CBV data and methods for sharing such data between trading partners.