UNSPSC
The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) is a taxonomy of products and services for use in eCommerce. It is a four-level hierarchy coded as an eight-digit number, with an optional fifth level adding two more digits.
Version 16, released in 2014,[1] contained over 50,000 commodities. The latest release of the code set is 19.0501 (as of July 2016).[2]
The UNSPSC competes with a number of other product and commodity coding schemes, including the European Union's Common Procurement Vocabulary, Germany's Eclass, and GS1's Global Product Classification.[3]
History
The UNSPSC was created upon the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on September 29, 1998 by John S. Svendsen, the director of the Inter-agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and on November 1, 1998 by Lawrence M. Barth, a Vice President of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. The development of the first version was overseen by Peter R. Benson, who was also responsible for the design and development of the code management procedure as a modification of the Delphi statistical forecasting method. The process allowed for the rapid development of consensus without dominance or influence.
The ECCMA, a non-profit membership association, was formed in 1999 to manage and promote the UNSPSC until March 2003, with the release of version 6.0315. The UNDP then appointed GS1 US as code manager in May 2003 and ECCMA develops the ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary (eOTD) and the international standards ISO 22745 and ISO 8000.
Description
The four primary levels of the code are:[4] Segment, Family, Class and Commodity.
Each level is coded in two decimal digits, with '00' treated specially to give segments, families and classes their own eight-digit codes.
| Level | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Segment | 10000000 | Live Plant and Animal Material and Accessories and Supplies |
| Family | 10100000 | Live animals |
| Class | 10101500 | Livestock |
| Commodity | 10101501 | Cats |
Thus 'Cats' are coded as 10101501, 'Dogs' are coded as 10101502 and 'Cattle' as 10101516. The class of 'Livestock' is 10101500; the family of 'Live animals' is 10100000, and all in the segment 10000000 of 'Live Plant and Animal Material and Accessories and Supplies'.
| Level | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Segment | 44000000 | Office Equipment, Accessories and Supplies |
| Family | 44120000 | Office supplies |
| Class | 44121900 | Ink and lead refills |
| Commodity | 44121903 | Pen refills |
Optionally, a further two digits can be added for the business function, such as 'retail' or wholesale.[5]
Governance
The UNSPSC was jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Dun & Bradstreet[6] in 1998 and is currently managed by GS1 US, which is responsible for overseeing code change requests, revising the codes and issuing regularly scheduled updates to the code, as well as managing special projects and initiatives.[7]
Availability and languages
The codeset is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Hungarian. PDF versions of the codeset are available for free download. A version in Microsoft Excel format is available to members, who can also request changes and suggest additions to the code.
See also
- Common Procurement Vocabulary
- Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS)
- eOTD
- ETIM
- Global Product Classification
- GS1
- International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC)
- North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
- Point code
- RosettaNet
- Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
Notes
- ↑ http://www.unspsc.org/Portals/3/Documents/20140124%20February%20UNSPSC%20Newsletter.pdf
- ↑ "UNSPSC > Search-Code".
- ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/rules/cpv/121219_report-review-cpv-codes-functioning_en.pdf
- ↑ "UNSPSC > FAQs".
- ↑ http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trade/agr/meetings/ge.11/2005/2005_i04_UNSPSC.pdf
- ↑ Cavinato, Joseph L.; Flynn, Anna E.; Kauffman, Ralph G. (2006). The supply management handbook. McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 439.
- ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions". UNSPSC.org. UNSPSC. Retrieved 2016-07-13.
References
- Hepp, Martin (January–March 2006). "Products and Services Ontologies" (PDF). International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJSWIS). 2 (1): 72–99. doi:10.4018/jswis.2006010103.
- Hepp, Martin; De Bruijn, Jos (2007). "Gen Tax: A Generic Methodology for Deriving OWL and RDF-S Ontologies from Hierarchical Classifications, Thesauri, and Inconsistent Taxonomies". In E. Fraconi, M. Kifer, and W. May. The Semantic Web: Research and Applications (PDF). Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 4519. Springer. pp. 129–144. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-72667-8_11. ISBN 978-3-540-72666-1. Proceedings of the 4th European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2007), June 3–7, Innsbruck, Austria.
- Hepp, Martin; Leukel, Joerg; Schmitz, Volker (2006). "A quantitative analysis of product categorization standards: Content, coverage, and maintenance of e Cl@ss, UNSPSC, eOTD, and the Rosetta Net Technical Dictionary" (PDF). Knowledge and Information Systems. 13 (1): 77–114. doi:10.1007/s10115-006-0054-2.