scope:

This part of ISO/IEC 15459 specifies a unique, non-significant, string of characters for the unique identifier for supply chain management. The character string is intended to be represented in a bar code label or other AIDC media attached to the item to meet supply chain management needs. To address management needs different classes of items are recognized in the various parts of ISO/IEC 15459, which allows different requirements to be met by the unique identifiers associated with each class. The rules are defined for the unique identifiers for supply chain management to identify the unique occurrence of an item, understood to mean the layers zero and one as will be defined in two future International Standards (ISO 17367 and ISO 17366, respectively).