History of Barcode

Bardcode is a visual data represented in white spaces between black parallel lines, which could be red by a scanning device and is called “1D”.  As a simple identification, barcodes are added to goods. Their usage can be applied in warehouses and retail stores for monitoring inventories and in accounts for many other applications. Now there are other “2D” barcodes represented in rectangles, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns, they are also scannable by a devise.

History of Barcode Discovery and Use

Inventors of the barcode were Norman Joseph Woodland, who drew a series of sand lines to represent Morse code, and Bernard Silver, who developed the concept. In 1966, a patent was awarded and NCR was the first enterprise to create a consumer symbol scanner. The initial thing ever screened with a barcode was a box of Wrigley's gum in a Marsh store in Troy, Ohio, the hometown of NCR.

The concept of barcodes started as an idea in the early 1930s to create an "automated food shop" where people would hand punch card to an employee who whould then load it onto a reader, and that would cause the desired items to be delivered through flow racks, whereby the bill would be generated automatically. The project has never begun. The readers of the punch card were too costly and too challenging in terms of implementing and the process and time consumption.

An 18-year-old graduate student at Philadelphia's Drexel Institute of Technology, Bernard Silver, overheard the local food chain chairperson asking a dean to look up a system to search out product information automatically. Silver developed a proposal and presented it to Norman Joseph Woodland and Jordin Johanson, who began researching several options. Their first research method used UV dye, although it was very expensive. The next idea was inspired by the language of Morse, when Woodland created his first sand barcode on the beach when he thought; "I've just laid out the dots and strings, forming short lines and long lines between them." On October 7th 1952, inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver had the first patent for a barcode product in question; an emblem of 'blue eye', consisting of a set of condensed rings.

In 1966, the barcode was first used widely, and suddenly it was apparent that some kind of “business norm” needs to be established. Around 1970, a corporation named Logicon Inc. created the Universal Product Identification Code or UGPIC. In many parts of the world, UGPIC became the symbol set or the universal product code. The illustration of language of the U.P.C as we know it (Fig2), which George J. Laurer developed in 1973. In June 1974 in a Marsh's store in Troy, Ohio, the first U.P.C. machine was placed in operation. A pack of Wrigley's Gum was the first product that had a barcode.

Usage of Barcodes

Barcodes have been an important component of our financial network. It reduces human mistakes, allows precise detection, improves our lives and speeds up data processing. Barcodes are the unsung heroes of the recognition sector, from factories, airports, stores, and restaurant menus.

The main term for barcode is traceability. Today we can tell, in part thanks to the barcode, precisely what a commodity is and its history: where and where it was made, where and how it was shipped? Even, who was the shift supervisor when a commodity was under quality control?

Traceability helps enterprises to track everything from the production cycle to the precise pallet on which it was stored. It tracks details like: what point of sale, amount, location, quantities a commodity is at. In our current economic environment, the barcode has become a vital tool.

Barcodes have been created to enhance selling processes, although other potential business benefits are also available, which includes:

  • Improved data processing – The use of a barcode scan for processing data has improved accuracy than using error-prone manual data.
  • Data are available immediately Information on inventory or sales levels is presented instantly as a result of processing speeds.
  • Decreased preparation expectations – Thanks for barcode scanners, manual information tracking has been practically obsolete. In addition, workers don’t need to remember a vast amount of data, thanks to barcodes.
  • Improved inventory tracking – The ability to search and perform inventory tracking helps in a far more precise count and a higher inventory change estimate. Organizations will have more accurate inventory because tracking helps forecast number of units that will most likely sell.
  • Low-cost application – Barcode production is relatively fast and quickly achieved when a barcode devise is built, which helps significant savings in the long haul.

 

Types of Barcode

There are two general barcode types: Linear/1-Dimensional (1D barcode) and Matrix/2-Dimensional (2D barcode).

1D barcode includes several lines, for example, product type, size, color, used to store text information. They are included on product packaging in the top section of the universal product codes (UPCs) used to help track packaging across the US. Postal and ISBNs on books back cover.

2D barcodes are more complicated and can contain more detail, including size, number, and even picture, than just text. Many other barcode variations exist, but they are used based on their individual needs.

Different Barcode Fonts and Their Application

Mac Code 128 - Compliant cross-platform font that works with any font codepages in any region, as well as even sets of double bytes.

GS1 Data Bar- Previously called RSS Symbology. The GTIN and other data relevant to GS1 may be encoded by this barcode font.

Code 39 - An alpha-numeric barcode encoding uppercase letters, numbers, and other symbols (It is also referred to as Barcode/39, 3 of 9 Code, and LOGMARS-Code).

POSTNET & PLANET - Used for mail collection and recording by United States PostOffices.

Aztec Fonts – A2D font that excludes quiet zones

QR-Code Fonts - A matrix barcode fonts that encodes binary characters, as well as Kanji and ASCII characters

Security Fonts – For safe printing and recording of emails, names and currency quantities on extremely sensitive records.

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