Now that the QuickCheck® has been off the market for about a year, how does that product look as we look back on it? What have we learned and what does the future look like?

There are still a lot of loyal QuickCheck® users whose venerable old QC600’s and QC800’s are still working (or at least functioning) and still used regularly, so not everybody is “looking back” quite yet, at least until those devices finally fail and must be replaced. But lots of users have already moved on. Here’s what some of them have observed.

QuickCheck verifiers with gun-imagers are not ISO compliant

A user at a major Midwest corrugated facility observed that his bar codes don’t seem as good with his new verifier as they did with the old QuickCheck® 850. But he realizes now—he didn’t before—that the old QuickCheck® didn’t test reflectivity at all with the gun-imager plugged in. This is the most important parameter to test in a corrugated converting operation, and the QuickCheck® wasn’t testing it at all. Now he is actually seeing how good—or bad—his bar codes are, and that’s actually a huge relief.

The QuickCheck verifier made some bar codes seem better than they were. A bad trait for a test device

Another user, a label printer in Atlanta, admits that she really didn’t realize what a dinosaur the QuickCheck® has become until she was forced to replace it. The new device, which was actually recommended to her by Honeywell, easily converts from a USB tethered verifier to a portable. She especially loves the user-configurable verification reports in full color and the fact she doesn’t need a special printer with an old-school ink ribbon to print a report.

A major consumer products brand owner in Minneapolis was thrilled to learn that their new verifier could also validate their bar codes with its product look-up plug-in. They obviously didn’t realize their old QuickCheck® could do this, but it was so complicated and technical, they probably wouldn’t have used it anyway.  A healthcare manufacturer in New Jersey made the same observation, and offered the following comment: “What good does it do to know the bar code is an ISO 4.0 grade if it’s on the wrong product? It would almost be better if it didn’t scan at all!”

QuickCheck verifiers made it all seem easy–it was a feature and a flaw

As Datamatrix and QR Code have been more widely adopted in the past year, the need for verifiers that can test both linear and 2D symbols has intensified. At his time there aren’t a lot of choices for verifiers that can test both types of symbols, some industry leaders have moved aggressively into that space and there are some devices out there. These “universal” verifiers are causing some sticker shock, and there is room for competition and innovation. To date there is no truly portable universal verifier, although one manufacturer rather creatively calls their light weight PC-tethered “portable”.

Too bad Honeywell walked away from the opportunity this presents. But the QuickCheck® belonged to a different era, and only one year after its final departure, it really seems old.

John Nachtrieb

John helps companies resolve current barcode problems and avoid future barcode problems to stabilize and secure their supply chain and strengthen their trading partner relationships.