The Story Behind Barcode Number Scanning

1. Article 3:Sabarcodes.co.za THE STORY BEHIND BARCODE NUMBER SCANNING Everyone is already familiar with what barcodes are. When you are checking out of a grocery store, you may have noticed that the cashier has a handheld scanner which he uses to scan a code on the product packaging. This code looks like a bunch of black-and-white vertical lines – this is the UPC barcode. UPC stands for Universal Product Code. This article discusses where this code comes from and how the scanning works. The UPC barcode number practice was initiated by grocery store managers in order to keep a check on their inventory. With so many items coming into stores and being sold, a system was required which could keep track of each item as it came in till the time it went out. Assigning a unique identification number to each item enabled the storekeepers to maintain exact calculation of the transactions taking place in the store. This method of keeping track of things got so popularized that it spread to other commercial products industries later on. The UPC is generated by a company called Uniform Code Council (UCC). If you are a manufacturer and wish to avail the benefits of barcodes for products, then you will need to apply to the UCC to enter the UPC system. For this, you will probably need to pay an annual fee to UCC. When you finally receive this permission, the UCC will issue you a unique identification number, called Manufacturer Identification Number. You will also be given guidelines to use it. It is a twelve-digit number which occurs on the barcode of your products. It consists of two parts: the first part is the barcode, and the second part is the human-readable number code. Now let’s try to understand how scanning a barcode works. As already discusses, a barcode consists of twelve digits. Out of these, the first six digits are the manufacturer identification number. The next five digits are the item number. This item number is unique to each item being manufactured. Since it is different for each item, it becomes easy to track things. This makes a total of eleven digits. The last digit of the UPC code sequence is a check-digit. This value is used by computers and scanners to check if everything is in order. In the first eleven digits, upon scanning, the computer first adds all the numbers at odd positions. To the figure obtained, it multiplies three. Next, the computer adds all the values sitting in even positions. It then adds this figure to the number obtained upon multiplication with three. This final number is then converted into the nearest multiple of ten by adding a suitable number to it. This number – the one which you add to the value to make it a multiple of ten, is the check digit. This number should match with the twelfth number on the code. The computer checks it, and if these numbers do not match, it returns an error. This is how scanning works. To know more about barcodes for sale, visit Sabarcodes.co.za. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dave Hawkins is an expert when it comes to new age barcode technology. He also likes to write many interesting articles and blogs on the topic, helping people understand the basics of these systems and adapt them in their business/professional life. For barcode registration and other information, he recommends SABarcodes.za as the most trustworthy website.