What Are Barcodes and Why Do They Exist?

What Are Barcodes and Why Do They Exist?

*Dr. Jerome Swartz: “Barcodes are portable, disposable memory”

*former CEO, Symbol Technologies

How Are Barcodes Used?

Barcodes are for:

• Maintaining inventory in retail sales

• Tracking parts or subassemblies in a manufacturing process

• Tracking shipments

• Securing product in a supply chain

• Access control (key card or ID)

• Website link in marketing piece (QR Code)

Why Do Barcodes Exist?

…because they solve problems.

Barcodes were first used in the grocery industry to replace slow, error prone manual key entry of items at checkout.

How are Barcodes Used?

Soon other industries began to benefit from barcoding too:

•Defense industry hardware

•Automotive industry just-in-time inventory

Barcodes in the Future?

Yes! (emphatically)…because they continue to solve problems cheaply and reliably, and they play nicely with other technologies such as RFID

What will future barcodes do?

The imagination is the only limitation