UNSPSC


The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code 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.
The latest release of the code set is 22.0601 and contains 156,478 codes.
The UNSPSC competes with a number of other product and commodity coding schemes, including the European Union's Common Procurement Vocabulary, Germany's ECl@ss, and GS1's Global Product Classification.

History

The UNSPSC was organized 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 of the United Nations Development Programme 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 and the international standards ISO 22745 and ISO 8000.

Description

The four primary levels of the code are: 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.
LevelCodeDescription
Segment10000000Live Plant and Animal Material and Accessories and Supplies
Family10100000Live animals
Class10101500Livestock
Commodity10101501Cats

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'.
LevelCodeDescription
Segment44000000Office Equipment, Accessories and Supplies
Family44120000Office supplies
Class44121900Ink and lead refills
Commodity44121903Pen refills

Optionally, a further two digits can be added for the business function, such as 'retail' or wholesale.

Governance

The UNSPSC was jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme and Dun & Bradstreet 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.

Availability and languages

The codeset is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Hungarian. The latest PDF version of the codeset is available for download at no cost, though a user account is required and can be created. A version in Microsoft Excel format is available to members, who can also request changes and suggest additions to the code.