Product Classification:
The United Nations Standard Product and
Services Code (UNSPSC®)
Overview
In short, the UNSPSC is:
• An analysis tool for organizing,
finding items and ordering products
• A free and open standard that can be
used across many industries
• Allows companies to consistently
classify the products and services they buy and sell.
The United Nations Standard Product and
Services Code (UNSPSC) is an open, global standard taxonomy
that allows organizations to consistently classify the products
and services they buy and sell. Sanctioned by the United
Nations and administered by GS1 US™, the UNSPSC is
designed to group similar products together into categories,
which is valuable for analysis, organization and searching for
and ordering products. Hospitals and suppliers are increasingly
adopting the UNSPSC because it is easy to use, free, and
reduces resource requirements associated with developing,
maintaining or supporting any proprietary taxonomy system.
There are no license fees or restriction on sharing UNSPSC
codes between trading partners.
How the UNSPSC Works
Using the UNSPSC is analogous to how
biologists classify living things (using family, genus and
species). Below is an example of how a pen might be
classified under the UNSPSC structure:
Heirarchy: Category Number & Name
Segment: 44 Office Equipment and Accessories & Supplies
---------> Family:
10 Office machines &
their supplies and accessories
11 Office and
desk accessories
12 Office
supplies
------------------> Class: 15 Mailing
supplies
16 Desk supplies
17 Writing instruments
----------------------------> Commodity: 01 Rollerball
pens
UNSPSC does not identify individual items
nor describe them. Instead, it provides a way to categorize a
product but not to provide any details regarding specifications
or features. Classification is hierarchical; descriptions
are not. In the above example, descriptions would be provided
by the manufacturer and include such factors as color, size,
type of ink cartridge used, etc.
