 UPC/EAN
— Generally recognized as the first popular use of bar coding
(first U.P.C. scanning reportedly was of a pack of gum in Troy,OH, June 26, 1974),
the U.P.C. symbol dominates grocery and retail industry tagging. It is used for
product identifica-tion and price lookup at the point of sale and lately is seeing
wider use to analyze customer purchasing behavior. To apply the code to your products,
U.S. manufacturers must obtain a six-digit manufacturer ID from the Uniform Code
Council, Dayton, OH, (800-543-8137). Manufacturers supply a five-digit item n
u m b e r, followed by a one-digit calcu-lated check digit. Europeans use the
generally equiva-lent European Article Numbering system, obtainable from EAN.
By 2005, all US retailers must be capable of scanning the EAN symbology that has
13 digits plus a check digit. These fixed-length, numeric-only codes are omnidirectional,
meaning they can be scanned in either direction. They are printable in several
standardized versions. Two dark bars and two light spaces represent each character
or digit of a code. Each character is made up of seven data elements or modules.
Symbol size can vary to accommodate various print-ing processes, but U.P.C./EAN
scans best if height exceeds width. It accommo-dates high-speed printing. |
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