1,6 million workers and more than 173.000 companies (most of them SMEs) are involved directly or indirectly in this the textile/clothing and footwear products manufacturing and distribution, with a complex integration of a lot of different actors in the whole design-production-sell chain. The lack of digital integration of all the different actor creates serious difficulties to SMEs, that are in risk of being cut off from the European and global value chains.

The objective of our work was to provide an effective solution for data integration and interchange, based on the development of a data model and a reference architecture, eBIZ-4.0, an evolution of standard eBIZ integrated with the use of well-known RFID technology in two key sectors of fashion industry (textile/clothing and footwear).

This work will allow the flow of digital information along multi-tiers smart and flexible supply chains that reinforce the collaboration between SMEs and large industry and retail, increasing the quality and extend of collaboration between brands and SMEs turning the latter from being just (replaceable) suppliers of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) into partners for design, production and distribution of products with a digital identity.

The final objective of the development of the data model and the reference architecture, was to deliver a suite of software products and services (supporting multiple paradigms like peer-to-peer data exchange as well as SCM portals) that natively supports multi-tier goods and data flows through RFID and eBIZ standard in a robust and resilient approach targeting SMEs and their ITC systems and connecting on common retail channels the products coming from both footwear and textile-clothing sector.