BARCODE IS 40

A Barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of the data relating to the object to which it is attached.  It is a very easy way of representing compled data like product number, description, manufacturer, price, year of manufacturing, etc.
 
The barcode is an advanced way of identifying a product and its price and is now used virtually on all products in the market.  The Barcode was first used 40 years ago and Wrigley Chewing Gum was the product that had the barcode commercially used in 1974.  As a technology the barcode scanning and use of barcodes on products has improved over the years.  In recent times we find that there is barcode on every product.


The teacher in me was looking for a short lesson on Barcode and I found a nice video which explains very clearly the way the barcode works:



While the use of barcode has been rampant in the recent times it is really amazing to learn that this system is now 40 years old.  We have now recently graduated to the next level of technology which is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags which is based on the Barcode Technology.

The retail experience has changed so much over the last few years because of the extensive use of barcode.  The barcode sticker has become essential on all products and it is so widely used that there is hardly any store in Dubai where they do not have a barcode sticker on the products.  There are big hypermarkets like Carrefour, Lulu, Spinneys, etc. which will not accept a product from the supplier without a barcode.  Even Government Departments are using the barcode system to track and retrieve documents.  Hospitals are using barcode to track the patients and their records.

The initial barcode scanners were fixed and now we have wireless scanners.  The extensive use of barcode with mobile application can be seen in the Courier Industry.  In addition to the ease of operation at the retail store, government department, hospital, factory, banks, courier companies, airports, etc., the Barcode has helped us to save billions of dollars every year. 

Barcode is used in companies for tracking the Assets, for warehouse management, for inventory control, for display of the prices of products and so on.  The application of the barcode is wideranging and its use has made both recording, tracking, retrieving and analysing of data so much more easy over the years.

There are other developments which has happened with the barcode like the Aztec Code, QR Code, Qode, etc. for the two dimensional/two way representation of information.

There are several uses, advantages and applications that we have seen with the advancement of technology and in my opinion the Barcode is one of the most significant development.  I read recently in a report that world over there are about 5 billion barcode scans each day and it is increasing day by day.

Long live Barcode technology.  I wish the Barcode Technology happy 40th Anniversary and will many more happy returns of the day.

T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
30th June 2014.