As holiday shopping steps up, you might interact with barcodes \u2013 those squares or rectangles with vertical black lines interspersed with white space and numbers that are attached to your purchased items \u2013 more than usual. Ever wonder where they came from and what they do?<\/p>\n
\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Virtually all types of businesses use barcodes to track products, prices and inventory. Computers linked to scanners read the codes and use a unique combination of bars, spaces and numbers to retrieve data about the product.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarcodes play a crucial role in the effective and efficient operation of our economy, from small businesses to large multinational conglomerates,\u201d says Wasp Barcode Technologies, a Plano, Texas-based provider of inventory management and asset tracking systems. \u201cThey paved the way for the globally connected distribution channels we now have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Innovation from lines in the sand<\/strong><\/p>\n
Barcodes trace their origin to 1949, when Joseph Woodland, a mechanical engineer at Drexel University, drew a set of parallel lines, or bars, in beach sand as he sought to apply a variation of Morse code to automate the grocery checkout process. Woodland and his colleague Bernard Silver subsequently filed a patent application for \u201cClassifying Apparatus and Method,\u201d the first barcode concept, which was granted three years later.<\/p>\n
Scanning technology capable of reading the symbols and converting them into information such as an item\u2019s origin, price and location didn\u2019t come until the 1970s. That\u2019s when basic guidelines for barcode development and an effective coding system, plus a standardized 11-digit code to identify products, were developed. On June 26, 1974, the first barcode, on a pack of chewing gum, was scanned at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio.<\/p>\n
1D and 2D types<\/strong><\/p>\n
The pattern of the most popular type of barcode, the linear or \u201c1D,\u201d is formed by the varying widths of the bars and the spaces between them. A barcode\u2019s numbers encompass the manufacturer\u2019s identification number, the item\u2019s number and a check digit that helps determine if the barcode was scanned correctly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink of barcodes like a license plate. There\u2019s nothing stored in the license plate. It\u2019s simply a number that, when looked up or keyed into a system, pulls up more data about the driver and the car,\u201d says Shopify Inc., which provides internet infrastructure for retail businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The more sophisticated \u201c2D\u201d barcode type, which includes QR codes, uses geometric patterns and can hold thousands of digits or characters of text and are used to share information, websites, videos and more.<\/p>\n
Multiple business benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n
By encoding product information into bars and alphanumeric characters, barcodes dramatically speed up the time needed to tally charges at checkout lines, return or exchanging merchandise and providing accurate inventory tracking, without errors associated with manual data entry. Organizations use barcodes for fast, easy tracking of items throughout their lifecycle, from manufacture and distribution to purchase and servicing. And creating barcodes is fairly simple with basic software, printer and scanner resources.<\/p>\n
A 2D future<\/strong><\/p>\n
As barcode tech evolves, many in the global supply chain have embraced \u201cSunrise 2027,\u201d which calls for wide adoption of 2D barcodes by the end of that year. This transition will \u201copen a range of new possibilities, providing all the information consumers need and desire, improving traceability and driving efficiencies through the supply chain,\u201d according to a global consumer goods standards consortium that includes Alibaba, Procter & Gamble and L\u2019Or\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
But even with Sunrise 2027 in full swing, it\u2019s hard to imagine that the world will ever be completely void of 1D, which, \u201cwith its simple system of vertical lines printed on all packaged goods, reliably does what it was designed to do more than 50 years ago: electronically identify every product and its price point with one scan for inventory management and point-of-sale transactions,\u201d says the National Assn. of Convenience Stores, an advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As holiday shopping steps up, you might interact with barcodes \u2013 those squares or rectangles with vertical black lines interspersed with white space and numbers that are attached to your purchased items \u2013 more than usual. Ever wonder where they came from and what they do? Virtually all types of businesses use barcodes to track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":39011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-39010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-consumer-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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