A Look Back At Bar Codes

By Keren Kipfer


Back in the 1970s and earlier, going to the grocery store was a very different experience that it is today. Checkers used manual cash registers and punched in the price of each product individually. Store employees also had to mark each product with a price sticker. Today of course, the food and other grocery items have a bar code, and you simply scan the product and the computerized cash register does all the adding up. The codes also help keep inventory in check, which makes life easier for store managers.

While the bar code scanners weren't commonplace until the 1980s, bar codes were actually developed as early as the 1950s. The first patent for a bar code was issued in 1952 to Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland who developed the code and reader using a light bulb and movie projector parts. The first bar code scanner for a grocery store was installed in 1974 at a supermarket in Ohio, and the very first item scanned was a package of Wrigley gum, which is now on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

All of the products in the store are printed with the Universal Product Code, which was created in 1966. Each number in the code has a special significance. If you see a product that begins with a 0, this means the product is a national brand. If you purchase an item that has been weighed at the deli, the first digit will be the number 2. Shampoo, make-up and other beauty items begin with a number 3 and so one. The second set of numbers in the UPC identifies the actual manufacturer. Each product can be easily identified using this code.

We have all seen the UPC bars on products, but there are also many other numbers that are printed on packages. Particularly on a food or drink item, you will see the batch number and expiration number printed somewhere on the label. This printing is done using a type of printer that is called an id coder or an id printer. The coders are fast printers with quick-drying inks that can print on materials such as plastic, glass, metal and many more surfaces.

There are many major brands of these id coders, which typically are drop-on-demand or continuous inkjet printers. You might see a company that uses a Domino printer or perhaps a Videojet printer. Other brands include Altima printers, Maxima printers and Imaje coders. If you are in the market for a coder, consider buying a used model and have it refurbished by a product id business that offers repairs and refurbishments. These companies also generally have many replacement parts on hand for all the major brands.

In addition, a product id firm is a great place to buy replacement inks and make-up fluids. You can find companies that create generic Domino ink, Altima ink, Videojet inks, Willett inks as well as all the make-up fluids you need at considerably lower prices than you get from the manufactured.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment