Barcodes with a string of numbers have long been found on products that we buy in a store.Most often, these are 13-digit codes with the first three digits representing the country in which the product was registered. A barcode is a graphic representation of characters in the form of a combination of light and dark elements, stripes and dashes that enable automatic reading of information about the product. Such reading is performed using a scanning technique.
WHY PRODUCTS BARCODES?
- a) Enabling transparent records of goods.
If it is necessary to enter a series of numbers into a computer or a cash register, this activity takes a lot of time for the employee, and there is also a risk of errors during the data entry process. According to statistics, one in 300 keystrokes is wrong. Replacing the keyboard with a barcode reader will increase work efficiency and reduce the probability of an error almost to zero.
- b) Allowing easy identification of each product.
- c) Efficient information exchange between supply chain partners. To enable you to quickly determine what products have been delivered and whether there are any delivery discrepancies.
- d) Quick and precise location of pallets and packaging in warehouses.
- e) Speeding up the loading and unloading of delivery vans.
- f) Possibility of better organization of the commercial space.
BARCODES – HOW ARE THEY GIVEN?
The owner of the trademark has the right to code the products.
If the manufacturer is the owner of the trademark, he assigns numbers from his own pool. If the owner of a trademark outsources production to another company, he has two options: he assigns numbers from his own pool or authorizes the producer to assign numbers for the ordered production from the producer’s pool of numbers.
Most articles in stores have 13-digit EAN-13 codes with a prefix indicating the country of registration of the product.
The matter is even more confusing, because some products only contain 8-digit codes.These are EAN-8 codes.For example, it is used on large packages by producers who have exhausted the EAN-13 code pool.Importantly, such codes do not have a prefix with the country of registration of the product, which makes it difficult to see where a specific article may come from. The eight-digit codes can be found on private label products.This is due to their international character – their own brand products are made in different countries and often find their way to the entire chain.
Not only the products in the supermarket have barcodes
To describe every type of product barcode in the economy, a much more extensive text, if not a textbook, would be needed. It is worth remembering that barcodes allowing for quick reading of encoded information are used practically everywhere – in logistics, on loyalty or gift cards, in courier shipments, on prescriptions, in company fixed assets registers, and wherever precise identification in the system is needed.
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