Boxcan: A platform realizing fast retrieval of parent-child tree of containers and inner objects over EPCIS events

This paper introduces "Boxcan", an information retrieval platform for aggregated objects in ID-based object management system based on GS1 EPCglobal architecture framework. Boxcan platform receives an EPC of a container, then provides a tree structure of current parent-child relationship between the EPCs of the container and its inner objects. This paper proposes the system design of Boxcan platform and its applications. The proposed system design is evaluated with a field test of a practical object management system including Boxcan platform. A technical challenge to realize this function of Boxcan platform, fast retrieval of current parent-child relationship of EPCs from EPCIS, is also discussed in this paper. The effectiveness of the caching mechanism of EPC´s current parent-child tree, which is a solution to this technical problem, is also evaluated by an experiment in a comparison with direct querying to EPCIS.