Barcoding: From Humble Beginnings to Industry Game-Changer
Guest blog from MHI Member Levata
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the debut of a technological advancement that changed how the world conducts commerce. In 1974, the first barcode was scanned at a grocery checkout. Since then, barcodes have become so commonplace that GS1, which maintains uniform standards and facilitates the implementation of barcodes worldwide, reports that barcodes are scanned 10 billion times a day. That’s more than 115,000 scans per second, a significant increase from the 5 billion scans per day reported ten years ago. Let’s take a look back at barcoding history and look ahead to the future of this essential technology.
Barcoding History: How a Pack of Gum Revolutionized Shopping
The idea of utilizing optical patterns to encode data that would be machine-readable was first developed and patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in the late 1940s. Building on their work, George Laurer refined the now-familiar vertical black-and-white lines of the Universal Product Code (UPC), which grocery retailers implemented in the early 1970s to solve the headaches of labor-intensive manual inventory management. Instead of putting a price tag on every item and manually keying in the information at the register, cashiers could scan the barcodes, significantly streamlining the checkout process. The first UPCs were put on products in 1973, and the first barcode scanned at a checkout was on a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum purchased at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26th, 1974.
Other retail sectors quickly adopted UPCs for various products, and barcode applications expanded beyond retail. Now, barcodes appear on ID cards for students and employees, ID wristbands for hospital patients and amusement park guests, tickets for travel and entertainment venues, mailing labels, warehouse and manufacturing labels, and much more. In 1988, the US Department of Agriculture even worked with Honeywell to create micro-barcodes for tagging honeybees to track their movements and behavior.
Barcode Evolution: Adding Another Dimension
While traditional barcodes were an industry game-changer, there was still room for improvement. UPCs are one-dimensional (1D) barcodes, limited in the information they can contain. In 1994, Masahiro Hara, chief engineer of Japanese auto parts company Denso Wave, created the Quick-Response (QR) code or 2D barcode. QR codes are square and pixelated, and they can contain greater amounts and more types of data than UPCs, such as website links. Consumers can scan QR codes with their smartphones or tablets to access more detailed product information, view a company’s website or a restaurant’s menu, or authorize payment processing. QR codes were standardized in 2014, and GS1 is working to facilitate worldwide adoption.
Not only has barcoding history evolved, but the accompanying technology has also. Besides barcode scanners embedded in checkout counters, various wired and wireless handheld barcode scanners add mobility to scanning functions. Barcode printers offer either direct thermal or thermal transfer printing of labels. Some barcode printer and scanner manufacturers offer rugged models to withstand busy warehouse environments.
Barcoding has come a long way since its debut. From increased speed and accuracy of inventory management to enriched consumer experiences and information access, advances in this technology continue to enable the supply chain to streamline business and maintain a competitive edge.
