The Universal Product Code (UPC) (redundantly: UPC code) is a barcode symbology that is widely used in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries for tracking trade items in stores.
UPC (technically refers to UPC-A) consists of 12 numeric digits that are uniquely assigned to each trade item. Along with the related EAN barcode, the UPC is the barcode mainly used for scanning of trade items at the point of sale, per GS1 specifications.[1] UPC data structures are a component of GTINs and follow the global GS1 specification, which is based on international standards. But some retailers (clothing, furniture) do not use the GS1 system (rather other barcode symbologies or article number systems). On the other hand, some retailers use the EAN/UPC barcode symbology, but without using a GTIN (for products sold in their own stores only).
History[edit]
Wallace Flint proposed an automated checkout system in 1932 using punched cards. Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland, a graduate student from Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), developed a bull's-eye style code and applied for the patent in 1949.[2][3]
In the 1960s, railroadsexperimented with a multicolor barcode for tracking rail cars, but they eventually abandoned it.[4]
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A group of grocery industry trade associations formed the Uniform Grocery Product Code Council which, with consultants Larry Russell and Tom Wilson of McKinsey & Company, defined the numerical format of the Uniform Product Code.[5] Technology firms including Charegon, IBM, Litton-Zellweger, Pitney Bowes-Alpex, Plessey-Anker, RCA, Scanner Inc., Singer, and Dymo Industries/Data General proposed alternative symbol representations to the council.[citation needed] In the end the Symbol Selection Committee chose to slightly modify, changing the font in the human readable area, the IBM proposal designed by George J. Laurer.[citation needed]
The first UPC marked item ever scanned at a retail checkout was at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio at 8:01 a.m. on June 26, 1974, and was a 10-pack (50 sticks) of Wrigley'sJuicy Fruit chewing gum.[6] The shopper was Clyde Dawson and cashier Sharon Buchanan made the first UPC scan. The NCR cash register rang up 67 cents.[7] The entire shopping cart also had barcoded items in it, but the gum was the first one picked up. This item went on display at the Smithsonian Institution'sNational Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.[8]
IBM proposal[edit]
Around late 1969, IBM at Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina assigned George Laurer to determine how to make a supermarket scanner and label. In late 1970, Heard Baumeister provided equations to calculate characters per inch achievable by two IBM bar codes, Delta A and Delta B. In February, 1971, Baumeister joined Laurer.
In mid 1971, William 'Bill' Crouse invented a new bar code called Delta C.[3]It achieved four times the characters per inch as Delta B. Delta B compared bar widths to space width to code bits. This was extremely sensitive to ink spread where too much ink or pressure would cause both edges of a bar to spread outward and too little to cause them to shrink. To make it worse as bars spread spaces shrink and vice versa. Delta C achieved its higher performance by only using leading to leading or trailing to trailing edges which was unaffected by uniform ink spread. The code provided best performance when it had a defined character set with a fixed reference distance that spanned most or preferably all the character. In August, 1971, Crouse joined the scanner effort. After several months they had made no progress. They were aware of the RCA bullâs eye label that could be scanned with a simple straight line laser scanner, but a readable label was far too large. Although Litton Industries proposed a bullâs eye symbol cut in half to reduce the area, it was still too large and presented the same ink smear printing problems as the RCA symbol. The redundancy and checking ability were removed completely. They were also aware of the many proposals from around the world, none of which were feasible.
The UPC Label showing the general characteristics of Baumeister's proposals
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In the spring of 1972, Baumeister announced a breakthrough. He proposed a label with bars that were slightly longer than the distance across all bars that needed to be read in a single pass. This label could be scanned with a simple âXâ scanner only slightly more complex than the straight line laser scanner. The next day Baumeister suggested if the label were split into two halves the bar lengths could be cut nearly in half. These two proposals reduced the area from the bullâs eye by one third and then one sixth. The image to the right shows the label proposed by Baumeister. He did not specify any specific bar code as that was well understood. Except for the bar coding and ten digits the UPC label today is his proposal. Shortly after that Baumeister transferred to another area of RTP.
Laurer proceeded to define the details of the label and write a proposal. N.J. Woodland was assigned as planner for the project and aided Laurer with writing his proposal.
Laurerâs first attempt with a bar code used Delta B. The resulting label size was about six inches by three inches which was too large. Crouse suggested that Laurer use his Delta C bar code and provided a copy of his patent that had a sample alphanumeric character set and rules to generate other size alphabets. This reduced the label size to about 1.5â x 0.9â. Later Laurer asked Crouse for assistance in how the scanner could detect a label. Together they defined guard bars and a definition of how to detect the label. The guard bars also provided identification for half label discrimination and training bars for the scanner threshold circuits. Laurer had a complete label definition and proceeded to write his proposal.[9]
Previously Crouse had an idea for a simple wand worn like a ring and bracelet. He decided to develop that wand to provide a demonstration of the label.[citation needed]
On December 1, 1972, IBM presented Laurer's proposal to the Super Market Committee in Rochester, Minnesota, the location where IBM would develop the scanner. During the presentation, Crouse gave a lab demonstration where he read UPC-like labels with his ring wand. In addition to reading regular labels, he read the large two-page centerfold label in the proposal booklet. He then turned to a page showing a photo of labeled items sitting on a table. The labels were small and flawed due to the resolution of the printed photo but the wand read many of them. This demonstration showed the robustness of the pure Delta C code. The proposal was accepted.
One month later, January 1, 1973 Crouse transferred back to IBM's Advanced Technology group, and Laurer remained with the full responsibility for the label.
Dymo Industries, makers of handheld printing devices insisted that the code be character independent,[clarification needed] so that handheld printing devices could produce the bar code in store if the items were not bar-coded by the manufacturers. Dymo's proposal was accepted by IBM and incorporated in IBM's latest proposal.
It was decided that the two halves of the label should have a different set of numeric characters. The character set Laurer derived from the Delta C patent used seven printable increments or units where two bars and two spaces would be printed. This yielded twenty combinations of characters, but there were two pairs that when read by Delta C rules yielded the same code for the pair. Since eighteen characters were not enough Laurer tried adding one unit to the character set. This yielded twenty-six Delta C characters which could provide the two sets of decimal characters but it also added fourteen percent to the width of the label and thereby the height. This would be a thirty percent increase in area or a label of 1.7âx1.03â. Laurer felt this was not acceptable. He returned to the original character set with twenty characters but four of those were two pairs with the same Delta C reading. He decided to use them all. To distinguish between the pairs he would measure one bar width in each of the pairs to distinguish them from each other. For each pair those bars would be one or two units wide. Laurer didnât apply Baumeisterâs equations to this set. He felt just one bar width measurement would not be too serious. As it turned out it would have required over fifty percent increase in width and height for an area increase of more than double. Laurer later admitted these four characters in each set were responsible for most of the scanner read errors.
David Savir, a mathematician, was given the task of proving the symbol could be printed and would meet the reliability requirements, and was most likely unaware of Baumeisterâs equations. He and Laurer added two more digits to the ten for error correction and detection. Then they decided to add odd/even parity to the number of units filled with bars in each side. Odd/even parity is a technique used to detect any odd number of bit errors in a bit stream. They decided to use odd on one half and even on the other. This would provide additional indication of which half ticket was being read. This meant that every bar width had to be read accurately to provide a good reading. It also meant every space would also be known. Requiring every bit width to be read precisely basically nullified the Delta C advantage except for the Delta C reference measurement. Only the strange character set and the size of the label remains as a shadow of the Delta C code. The size was still that calculated for pure Delta C. If the label size had been properly recalculated, taking into account the required bar width measurements the label would have been far too large to be acceptable.
Mechanical engineering and electronic circuit design commonly require worst case designs using known tolerances. Many engineers working with bar codes had little experience with such things and used somewhat intuitive methods. This was the cause of the poor performance of the Delta B code and quite likely the failure of RCAâs bullâs eye scanner.
The following table shows the workable labels, available in the early 1970s, with their sizes.
This is assuming a bullâs eye with the same information and reliable readability.
Composition[edit]
Each UPC-A barcode consists of a scannable strip of black bars and white spaces above a sequence of 12 numerical digits. No letters, characters or other content of any kind may appear on a UPC-A barcode. There is a one-to-one correspondence between 12-digit number and strip of black bars and white spaces, i.e. there is only one way to represent each 12-digit number visually and there is only one way to represent each strip of black bars and white spaces numerically.
The scannable area of every UPC-A barcode follows the pattern SLLLLLLMRRRRRRE, where S (start), M (middle), and E (end) guard patterns are represented the same way on every UPC-A barcode and the L (left) and R (right) sections collectively represent the 12 numerical digits that make each UPC-A unique. The first digit L indicates a particular number system to be used by the following digits. The last digit R is an error detectingcheck digit, that allows some errors to be detected in scanning or manual entry. The guard patterns separate the two groups of six numerical digits and establish the timing.
Note: UPC-A 042100005264 is equivalent to UPC-E 425261 with the 'EOEEOO' parity pattern, which is defined by UPC-A number system 0 and UPC-A check digit 4.
Formatting[edit]
UPC-A barcodes can be printed at various densities to accommodate a variety of printing and scanning processes. The significant dimensional parameter is called x-dimension (width of single module element). The width of each bar (space) is determined by multiplying the x-dimension and the module width (1, 2, 3, or 4 units) of each bar (space). Since the guard patterns each include two bars, and each of the 12 digits of the UPC-A barcode consists of two bars and two spaces, all UPC-A barcodes consist of exactly (3 Ã 2) + (12 Ã 2) = 30 bars, of which 6 represent guard patterns and 24 represent numerical digits.
The x-dimension for the UPC-A at the nominal size is 0.33 mm (0.013'). Nominal symbol height for UPC-A is 25.9 mm (1.02'). The bars forming the S (start), M (middle), and E (end) guard patterns, are extended downwards by 5 times x-dimension, with a resulting nominal symbol height of 27.55 mm (1.08'). This also applies to the bars of the first and last numerical digit of UPC-A barcode. UPC-A can be reduced or magnified anywhere from 80% to 200%.
A quiet zone, with a width of at least 9 times the x-dimension, must be present on each side of the scannable area of the UPC-A barcode.[10][11] For a GTIN-12 number encoded in a UPC-A barcode, the first and last digits are always placed outside the symbol in order to indicate the quiet zones that are necessary for barcode scanners to work properly.
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Encoding[edit]
The UPC-A barcode is visually represented by strips of bars and spaces that encode the UPC-A 12-digit number. Each digit is represented by a unique pattern of 2 bars and 2 spaces. The bars and spaces are variable width, i.e. 1, 2, 3, or 4 modules wide. The total width for a digit is always 7 modules; consequently, UPC-A 12-digit number requires a total of 7Ã12 = 84 modules.
A complete UPC-A is 95 modules wide: 84 modules for the digits (L and R sections) combined with 11 modules for the S (start), M (middle), and E (end) guard patterns. The S (start) and E (end) guard patterns are 3 modules wide and use the pattern bar-space-bar, where each bar and space is one module wide. The M (middle) guard pattern is 5 modules wide and uses the pattern space-bar-space-bar-space, where each bar and space is also one module wide. In addition, a UPC-A symbol requires a quiet zone (extra space of 9 modules wide) before the S (start) and after the E (end) guard patterns.
The UPC-A's left-hand side digits (the digits to the left of the M (middle) guard pattern) have odd parity, which means the total width of the black bars is an odd number of modules. On the contrary, the right-hand side digits have even parity. Consequently, a UPC scanner can determine whether it is scanning a symbol from left-to-right or from right-to-left (the symbol is upside-down). After seeing a S (start) or E (end) guard pattern (they are the same, bar-space-bar, whichever direction they are read), the scanner will first see odd parity digits, if scanning left-to-right, or even parity digits, if scanning right-to-left. With the parity/direction information, an upside-down symbol will not confuse the scanner. When confronted with an upside-down symbol, the scanner may simply ignore it (many scanners alternate left-to-right and right-to-left scans, so they will read the symbol on a subsequent pass) or recognize the digits and put them in the right order. There is another property in the digit encoding. The right-hand side digits are the optical inverse of the left-hand side digits, i.e. black bars are turned into white spaces and vice versa. For example, the left-hand side '4' is spaceÃ1 - barÃ1 - spaceÃ3 - barÃ2, meanwhile the right-hand side '4' is barÃ1 - spaceÃ1 - barÃ3 - spaceÃ2.
Numbering[edit]
The number of UPC-A and UPC-E barcodes are limited by the standards used to create them.
UPC-A: (10 possible values per left digit ^ 6 left digits) Ã (10 possible values per right digit ^ 5 right digits) = 100,000,000,000.
UPC-E: (10 possible values per digit ^ 6 digits) Ã (2 possible parity patterns per UPC-E number) = 2,000,000. Number system digit[edit]
Below is description of all possible number systems with corresponding 12-digit UPC-A numbering schema LLLLLLRRRRRR, where L denotes number system digit and R check digit.
Check digit calculation[edit]
The UPC includes a check digit to detect common data entry errors. For example, UPC-A codes choose the check digit x12{displaystyle x_{12}} to satisfy the check digit equation:
If an entered code does not satisfy the equation, then it is not a valid UPC-A.
The UPC-A check digit may be calculated as follows:
For example, in a UPC-A barcode '03600029145x12', where x12 is the unknown check digit, x12 may be calculated by:
Thus, the check digit x12 is 2.
The check digit equation is selected to have reasonable error detection properties (see Luhn algorithm).
Variations[edit]
UPC in its most common usage technically refers to UPC-A.
Other variants of the UPC exist:
As the UPC becomes technologically obsolete, it is expected[by whom?] that UPC-B and UPC-C will disappear from common use by the 2010s. The UPC-D standard may be modified into EAN 2.0 or be phased out entirely.[citation needed]
UPC-E[edit]
To allow the use of UPC barcodes on smaller packages, where a full 12-digit barcode may not fit, a 'zero-suppressed version of UPC was developed, called UPC-E, in which the number system digit, all trailing zeros in the manufacturer code, and all leading zeros in the product code, are suppressed (omitted).[15] This symbology differs from UPC-A in that it only uses a 6-digit code, does not use M (middle) guard pattern, and the E (end) guard pattern is formed as space-bar-space-bar-space-bar, i.e. UPC-E barcode follows the pattern SDDDDDDE. The way in which a 6-digit UPC-E relates to a 12-digit UPC-A, is determined by UPC-E numerical pattern and UPC-E parity pattern. It can only correspond to UPC-A number system 0 or 1, the value of which, along with the UPC-A check digit, determines the UPC-E parity pattern of the encoding. With the manufacturer code digits represented by X's, and product code digits by N's, then:
For example, a UPC-E 654321 may correspond to the UPC-A 065100004327 or 165100004324, depending on the UPC-E parity pattern of the encoded digits, as described next:
Barcode System For Meat Machine
UPC-E 654321 with 'EOEOEO' parity pattern (UPC-A 065100004327) would be encoded as
1-1-1 4-1-1-1 1-2-3-1 2-3-1-1 1-4-1-1 2-2-1-2 2-2-2-1 1-1-1-1-1-1.
Barcode System For Meat Prices
The barcode would look like this:
EAN-13[edit]
The EAN-13 was developed as a superset of UPC-A, adding an extra digit to the beginning of every UPC-A number. This expanded the number of unique values theoretically possible by ten times to 1 trillion. EAN-13 barcodes also indicate the country in which the company that sells the product is based (which may or may not be the same as the country in which the good is manufactured). The three leading digits of the code determine this, according to the GS1 country codes. Every UPC-A code can be easily converted to the equivalent EAN-13 code by prepending 0 digit to the UPC-A code. This does not change the check digit. All point-of-sale systems can now understand both equally.
EAN-8 is an 8-digit variation of the EAN barcode.
UPC usage notes:
See also[edit]
References[edit]
![]() Further reading[edit]
External links[edit]
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A UPC-A barcode symbol
A barcode (also bar code) is a visual, machine-readable representation of data; the data usually describes something about the object that carries the barcode. Traditional barcodes systematically represent data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D). Later, two-dimensional (2D) variants were developed, using rectangles, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns, called matrix codes or 2D barcodes, although they do not use bars as such. Initially, barcodes were only scanned by special optical scanners called barcode readers. Later application software became available for devices that could read images, such as smartphones with cameras.
The barcode was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and patented in the US in 1951(US Patent 2,612,994). The invention was based on Morse code[1] that was extended to thin and thick bars. However, it took over twenty years before this invention became commercially successful. An early use of one type of barcode in an industrial context was sponsored by the Association of American Railroads in the late 1960s. Developed by General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) and called KarTrak ACI (Automatic Car Identification), this scheme involved placing colored stripes in various combinations on steel plates which were affixed to the sides of railroad rolling stock. Two plates were used per car, one on each side, with the arrangement of the colored stripes encoding information such as ownership, type of equipment, and identification number.[2] The plates were read by a trackside scanner, located for instance, at the entrance to a classification yard, while the car was moving past.[3] The project was abandoned after about ten years because the system proved unreliable after long-term use.[2]
Barcodes became commercially successful when they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems, a task for which they have become almost universal. Their use has spread to many other tasks that are generically referred to as automatic identification and data capture (AIDC). The very first scanning of the now-ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode was on a pack of Wrigley Company chewing gum in June 1974.[4]QR codes, a specific type of 2D barcode, have recently become very popular.[5]
Other systems have made inroads in the AIDC market, but the simplicity, universality and low cost of barcodes has limited the role of these other systems, particularly before technologies such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) became available after 1995.
History[edit]
In 1948 Bernard Silver, a graduate student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US overheard the president of the local food chain, Food Fair, asking one of the deans to research a system to automatically read product information during checkout.[6] Silver told his friend Norman Joseph Woodland about the request, and they started working on a variety of systems. Their first working system used ultraviolet ink, but the ink faded too easily and was expensive.[7][8]
Convinced that the system was workable with further development, Woodland left Drexel, moved into his father's apartment in Florida, and continued working on the system. His next inspiration came from Morse code, and he formed his first barcode from sand on the beach. 'I just extended the dots and dashes downwards and made narrow lines and wide lines out of them.'[7] To read them, he adapted technology from optical soundtracks in movies, using a 500-watt incandescent light bulb shining through the paper onto an RCA935photomultiplier tube (from a movie projector) on the far side. He later decided that the system would work better if it were printed as a circle instead of a line, allowing it to be scanned in any direction.
On 20 October 1949, Woodland and Silver filed a patent application for 'Classifying Apparatus and Method', in which they described both the linear and bull's eye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read the code. The patent was issued on 7 October 1952 as US Patent 2,612,994. In 1951, Woodland moved to IBM and continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system. The company eventually commissioned a report on the idea, which concluded that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.
IBM offered to buy the patent, but the offer was not accepted. Philco purchased the patent in 1962 and then sold it to RCA sometime later.[7]
Collins at Sylvania[edit]
During his time as an undergraduate, David Collins worked at the Pennsylvania Railroad and became aware of the need to automatically identify railroad cars. Immediately after receiving his master's degree from MIT in 1959, he started work at GTE Sylvania and began addressing the problem. He developed a system called KarTrak using blue and red reflective stripes attached to the side of the cars, encoding a six-digit company identifier and a four-digit car number.[7] Light reflected off the stripes was fed into one of two photomultipliers, filtered for blue or red.[citation needed]
The Boston and Maine Railroad tested the KarTrak system on their gravel cars in 1961. The tests continued until 1967, when the Association of American Railroads (AAR) selected it as a standard, Automatic Car Identification, across the entire North American fleet. The installations began on 10 October 1967. However, the economic downturn and rash of bankruptcies in the industry in the early 1970s greatly slowed the rollout, and it was not until 1974 that 95% of the fleet was labeled. To add to its woes, the system was found to be easily fooled by dirt in certain applications, which greatly affected accuracy. The AAR abandoned the system in the late 1970s, and it was not until the mid-1980s that they introduced a similar system, this time based on radio tags.[9]
The railway project had failed, but a toll bridge in New Jersey requested a similar system so that it could quickly scan for cars that had purchased a monthly pass. Then the U.S. Post Office requested a system to track trucks entering and leaving their facilities. These applications required special retroreflector labels. Finally, Kal Kan asked the Sylvania team for a simpler (and cheaper) version which they could put on cases of pet food for inventory control.
Computer Identics Corporation[edit]
In 1967, with the railway system maturing, Collins went to management looking for funding for a project to develop a black-and-white version of the code for other industries. They declined, saying that the railway project was large enough, and they saw no need to branch out so quickly.
Collins then quit Sylvania and formed the Computer Identics Corporation.[7] As its first innovations, Computer Identics moved from using incandescent light bulbs in its systems, replacing them with heliumâneon lasers, and incorporated a mirror as well, making it capable of locating a barcode up to several feet in front of the scanner. This made the entire process much simpler and more reliable, and typically enabled these devices to deal with damaged labels, as well, by recognizing and reading the intact portions.
Computer Identics Corporation installed one of its first two scanning systems in the spring of 1969 at a General Motors (Buick) factory in Flint, Michigan.[7] The system was used to identify a dozen types of transmissions moving on an overhead conveyor from production to shipping. The other scanning system was installed at General Trading Company's distribution center in Carlstadt, New Jersey to direct shipments to the proper loading bay.
Universal Product Code[edit]
In 1966, the National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) held a meeting on the idea of automated checkout systems. RCA, who had purchased the rights to the original Woodland patent, attended the meeting and initiated an internal project to develop a system based on the bullseye code. The Kroger grocery chain volunteered to test it.
In the mid-1970s, the NAFC established the Ad-Hoc Committee for U.S. Supermarkets on a Uniform Grocery-Product Code to set guidelines for barcode development. In addition, it created a symbol-selection subcommittee to help standardize the approach. In cooperation with consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., they developed a standardized 11-digit code for identifying products. The committee then sent out a contract tender to develop a barcode system to print and read the code. The request went to Singer, National Cash Register (NCR), Litton Industries, RCA, Pitney-Bowes, IBM and many others.[10] A wide variety of barcode approaches was studied, including linear codes, RCA's bullseye concentric circle code, starburst patterns and others.
In the spring of 1971, RCA demonstrated their bullseye code at another industry meeting. IBM executives at the meeting noticed the crowds at the RCA booth and immediately developed their own system. IBM marketing specialist Alec Jablonover remembered that the company still employed Woodland, and he[who?] established a new facility in North Carolina to lead development.
In July 1972, RCA began an 18-month test in a Kroger store in Cincinnati. Barcodes were printed on small pieces of adhesive paper, and attached by hand by store employees when they were adding price tags. The code proved to have a serious problem; the printers would sometimes smear ink, rendering the code unreadable in most orientations. However, a linear code, like the one being developed by Woodland at IBM, was printed in the direction of the stripes, so extra ink would simply make the code 'taller' while remaining readable. So on 3 April 1973, the IBM UPC was selected as the NAFC standard. IBM had designed five versions of UPC symbology for future industry requirements: UPC A, B, C, D, and E.[11]
NCR installed a testbed system at Marsh's Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, near the factory that was producing the equipment. On 26 June 1974, Clyde Dawson pulled a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum out of his basket and it was scanned by Sharon Buchanan at 8:01 am. The pack of gum and the receipt are now on display in the Smithsonian Institution. It was the first commercial appearance of the UPC.[12]
In 1971, an IBM team was assembled for an intensive planning session, threshing out, 12 to 18 hours a day, how the technology would be deployed and operate cohesively across the system, and scheduling a roll-out plan. By 1973, the team were meeting with grocery manufacturers to introduce the symbol that would need to be printed on the packaging or labels of all of their products. There were no cost savings for a grocery to use it, unless at least 70% of the grocery's products had the barcode printed on the product by the manufacturer. IBM projected that 75% would be needed in 1975. Yet, although this was achieved, there were still scanning machines in fewer than 200 grocery stores by 1977.[13]
Economic studies conducted for the grocery industry committee projected over $40 million in savings to the industry from scanning by the mid-1970s. Those numbers were not achieved in that time-frame and some predicted the demise of barcode scanning. The usefulness of the barcode required the adoption of expensive scanners by a critical mass of retailers while manufacturers simultaneously adopted barcode labels. Neither wanted to move first and results were not promising for the first couple of years, with Business Week proclaiming 'The Supermarket Scanner That Failed' in a 1976 article.[12][14]
On the other hand, experience with barcode scanning in those stores revealed additional benefits. The detailed sales information acquired by the new systems allowed greater responsiveness to customer habits, needs and preferences. This was reflected in the fact that about 5 weeks after installing barcode scanners, sales in grocery stores typically started climbing and eventually leveled off at a 10â12% increase in sales that never dropped off. There was also a 1â2% decrease in operating cost for those stores, and this enabled them to lower prices and thereby to increase market share. It was shown in the field that the return on investment for a barcode scanner was 41.5%. By 1980, 8,000 stores per year were converting.[13]
Sims Supermarkets were the first location in Australia to use barcodes, starting in 1979.[15]
Industrial adoption[edit]
In 1981, the United States Department of Defense adopted the use of Code 39 for marking all products sold to the United States military. This system, Logistics Applications of Automated Marking and Reading Symbols (LOGMARS), is still used by DoD and is widely viewed as the catalyst for widespread adoption of barcoding in industrial uses.[16]
Use[edit]
Barcodes such as the UPC have become a ubiquitous element of modern civilization, as evidenced by their enthusiastic adoption by stores around the world; most items other than fresh produce from a grocery store now have UPC barcodes.[citation needed] This helps track items and also reduces instances of shoplifting involving price tag swapping, although shoplifters can now print their own barcodes.[17] In addition, retail chain membership cards (issued mostly by grocery stores and specialty 'big box' retail stores such as sporting equipment, office supply, or pet stores) use barcodes to uniquely identify consumers, allowing for customized marketing and greater understanding of individual consumer shopping patterns. At the point of sale, shoppers can get product discounts or special marketing offers through the address or e-mail address provided at registration.
Example of barcode on a patient identification wristband
They are widely used in the healthcare and hospital settings, ranging from patient identification (to access patient data, including medical history, drug allergies, etc.) to creating SOAP Notes[18] with barcodes to medication management. They are also used to facilitate the separation and indexing of documents that have been imaged in batch scanning applications, track the organization of species in biology,[19] and integrate with in-motion checkweighers to identify the item being weighed in a conveyor line for data collection.
They can also be used to keep track of objects and people; they are used to keep track of rental cars, airline luggage, nuclear waste, registered mail, express mail and parcels. Barcoded tickets allow the holder to enter sports arenas, cinemas, theatres, fairgrounds, and transportation, and are used to record the arrival and departure of vehicles from rental facilities etc. This can allow proprietors to identify duplicate or fraudulent tickets more easily. Barcodes are widely used in shop floor control applications software where employees can scan work orders and track the time spent on a job.
Barcoded parcel
Barcodes are also used in some kinds of non-contact 1D and 2D position sensors. A series of barcodes are used in some kinds of absolute 1D linear encoder. The barcodes are packed close enough together that the reader always has one or two barcodes in its field of view. As a kind of fiducial marker, the relative position of the barcode in the field of view of the reader gives incremental precise positioning, in some cases with sub-pixel resolution. The data decoded from the barcode gives the absolute coarse position. An 'address carpet', such as Howell's binary pattern and the Anoto dot pattern, is a 2D barcode designed so that a reader, even though only a tiny portion of the complete carpet is in the field of view of the reader, can find its absolute X,Y position and rotation in the carpet.[20][21]
2D barcodes can embed a hyperlink to a web page. A capable cellphone might be used to read the pattern and browse the linked website, which can help a shopper find the best price for an item in the vicinity. Since 2005, airlines use an IATA-standard 2D barcode on boarding passes (Bar Coded Boarding Pass (BCBP)), and since 2008 2D barcodes sent to mobile phones enable electronic boarding passes.[22]
Some applications for barcodes have fallen out of use. In the 1970s and 1980s, software source code was occasionally encoded in a barcode and printed on paper (Cauzin Softstrip and Paperbyte[23] are barcode symbologies specifically designed for this application), and the 1991 Barcode Battler computer game system used any standard barcode to generate combat statistics.
Artists have used barcodes in art, such as Scott Blake's Barcode Jesus, as part of the post-modernism movement.
Symbologies[edit]
The mapping between messages and barcodes is called a symbology. The specification of a symbology includes the encoding of the message into bars and spaces, any required start and stop markers, the size of the quiet zone required to be before and after the barcode, and the computation of a checksum.
Linear symbologies can be classified mainly by two properties:
Some symbologies use interleaving. The first character is encoded using black bars of varying width. The second character is then encoded by varying the width of the white spaces between these bars. Thus characters are encoded in pairs over the same section of the barcode. Interleaved 2 of 5 is an example of this.
Stacked symbologies repeat a given linear symbology vertically.
The most common among the many 2D symbologies are matrix codes, which feature square or dot-shaped modules arranged on a grid pattern. 2D symbologies also come in circular and other patterns and may employ steganography, hiding modules within an image (for example, DataGlyphs).
Linear symbologies are optimized for laser scanners, which sweep a light beam across the barcode in a straight line, reading a slice of the barcode light-dark patterns. Scanning at an angle makes the modules appear wider, but does not change the width ratios. Stacked symbologies are also optimized for laser scanning, with the laser making multiple passes across the barcode.
In the 1990s development of charge coupled device (CCD) imagers to read barcodes was pioneered by Welch Allyn. Imaging does not require moving parts, as a laser scanner does. In 2007, linear imaging had begun to supplant laser scanning as the preferred scan engine for its performance and durability.
2D symbologies cannot be read by a laser, as there is typically no sweep pattern that can encompass the entire symbol. They must be scanned by an image-based scanner employing a CCD or other digital camera sensor technology.
Scanners (barcode readers)[edit]
GTIN-Barcodes on Cokebottles
The right pictures show the red laser of barcode readers gets of the images behind the filter.
The earliest, and still the cheapest, barcode scanners are built from a fixed light and a single photosensor that is manually 'scrubbed' across the barcode.
Barcode scanners can be classified into three categories based on their connection to the computer. The older type is the RS-232 barcode scanner. This type requires special programming for transferring the input data to the application program.
'Keyboard interface scanners' connect to a computer using a PS/2 or AT keyboardâcompatible adaptor cable (a 'keyboard wedge'). The barcode's data is sent to the computer as if it had been typed on the keyboard.
Like the keyboard interface scanner, USB scanners are easy to install and do not need custom code for transferring input data to the application program. On PCs running Windows the HID interface emulates the data merging action of a hardware 'keyboard wedge', and the scanner automatically behaves like an additional keyboard.
Many phones are able to decode barcodes using their built-in camera, as well. Google's mobile Android operating system uses both their own Google Goggles application or third party barcode scanners like Scan.[24] Nokia's Symbian operating system features a barcode scanner,[25] while mbarcode[26] is a QR code reader for the Maemo operating system. In Apple iOS 11, the native camera app can decode QR codes and can link to URLs, join wireless networks, or perform other operations depending on the QR Code contents.[27] Other paid and free apps are available with scanning capabilities for other symbologies or for earlier iOS versions.[28] With BlackBerry devices, the App World application can natively scan barcodes and load any recognized Web URLs on the device's Web browser. Windows Phone 7.5 is able to scan barcodes through the Bing search app. However, these devices are not designed specifically for the capturing of barcodes. As a result, they do not decode nearly as quickly or accurately as a dedicated barcode scanner or portable data terminal.
Quality control and verification[edit]
Barcode verification examines scanability and the quality of the barcode in comparison to industry standards and specifications.[29] Barcode verifiers are primarily used by businesses that print and use barcodes. Any trading partner in the supply chain can test barcode quality. It is important to verify a barcode to ensure that any reader in the supply chain can successfully interpret a barcode with a low error rate. Retailers levy large penalties for non-compliant barcodes. These chargebacks can reduce a manufacturer's revenue by 2% to 10%.[30]
A barcode verifier works the way a reader does, but instead of simply decoding a barcode, a verifier performs a series of tests. For linear barcodes these tests are:
2D matrix symbols look at the parameters:
Depending on the parameter, each ANSI test is graded from 0.0 to 4.0 (F to A), or given a pass or fail mark. Each grade is determined by analyzing the scan reflectance profile (SRP), an analog graph of a single scan line across the entire symbol. The lowest of the 8 grades is the scan grade, and the overall ISO symbol grade is the average of the individual scan grades. For most applications a 2.5 (C) is the minimal acceptable symbol grade.[32]
Compared with a reader, a verifier measures a barcode's optical characteristics to international and industry standards. The measurement must be repeatable and consistent. Doing so requires constant conditions such as distance, illumination angle, sensor angle and verifier aperture. Based on the verification results, the production process can be adjusted to print higher quality barcodes that will scan down the supply chain.
Barcode verifier standards[edit]
This standard defines the measuring accuracy of a barcode verifier.
This standard defines the quality requirements for barcodes and matrix codes (also called optical codes).
International standards are available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).[34]
These standards are also available from local/national standardization organizations, such as ANSI, BSI, DIN, NEN and others.
Benefits[edit]
In point-of-sale management, barcode systems can provide detailed up-to-date information on the business, accelerating decisions and with more confidence. For example:
Besides sales and inventory tracking, barcodes are very useful in logistics and supply chain management.
Barcode scanners are relatively low cost and extremely accurate compared to key-entry, with only about 1 substitution error in 15,000 to 36 trillion characters entered.[35][unreliable source?] The exact error rate depends on the type of barcode.
Types of barcodes[edit]Linear barcodes[edit]
A first generation, 'one dimensional' barcode that is made up of lines and spaces of various widths that create specific patterns.
Matrix (2D) barcodes[edit]
A matrix code, also termed a 2D barcode or simply a 2D code, is a two-dimensional way to represent information. It is similar to a linear (1-dimensional) barcode, but can represent more data per unit area.
Example images[edit]
In popular culture[edit]
In architecture, a building in Lingang New City by German architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners incorporates a barcode design,[76] as does a shopping mall called Shtrikh-kod (Russian for barcode) in Narodnaya ulitsa ('People's Street') in the Nevskiy district of St. Petersburg, Russia.[77]
In media, in 2011, the National Film Board of Canada and ARTE France launched a web documentary entitled Barcode.tv, which allows users to view films about everyday objects by scanning the product's barcode with their iPhone camera.[78][79]
In professional wrestling, the WWE stable D-Generation X incorporated a barcode into their entrance video, as well as on a T-shirt.[80][81]
In the TV series Dark Angel, the protagonist and the other transgenics in the Manticore X-series have barcodes on the back of their necks.
In video games, the protagonist of the Hitman video game series has a barcode tattoo on the back of his head. Also, QR codes can be scanned for an extra mission on Watch Dogs.
In the films Back to the Future Part II and The Handmaid's Tale, cars in the future are depicted with barcode licence plates.
In the Terminator films shows Skynet burns barcodes onto the inside surface of the wrists of captive humans (in a similar location to the WW2 concentration camp tattoos) as a unique identifier.
In music, Dave Davies of The Kinks released a solo album in 1980, AFL1-3603, which featured a giant barcode on the front cover in place of the musician's head. The album's name was also the barcode number.
The April, 1978 issue of Mad Magazine featured a giant barcode on the cover, with the blurb '[Mad] Hopes this issue jams up every computer in the country..for forcing us to deface our covers with this yecchy UPC symbol from now on!'
Designed barcodes[edit]
Some brands integrate still valid readable barcodes on their consumer products.
Hoaxes about barcodes[edit]
In esotericism, the red line should remove unbalance in the lines of the barcode. While the line is kept in red color, it does not disrupt scanning the barcode.
The global public launch of the barcode[when?] was greeted with minor skepticism from conspiracy theorists, who considered barcodes to be an intrusive surveillance technology, and from some Christians, pioneered by a 1982 book The New Money System 666 by Mary Stewart Relfe, who thought the codes hid the number 666, representing the 'Number of the Beast.'[82] Television host Phil Donahue described barcodes as a 'corporate plot against consumers'.[83]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Further reading[edit]
External links[edit]
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