Barcode quality has been the primary topic of discussion these past months. It’s important to may industries in a  wide variety of applications. What about you out there in the trenches?

Barcode quality problems: What’s your Experience?

Barcode quality is a multi-step procedure. For example, in the retail channel every step in the process, from getting the GTIN number assigned to the item to creating the barcode design file to incorporating it into the packaging graphics to getting it printed and notifying the retailers to finally getting the item on retailer shelves and ultimately to the point-of-sale—every step is an error opportunity for the barcode to fail.

So what, in your opinion, dear reader, is the problem with barcode quality—in 3-4 sentences?

Barcode quality is a multi-step procedure: where do you see most of the failures?

It doesn’t make a difference whether the barcode is in a consumer product retail channel, a drug trace-and-track environment, a health industry supplier situation or in manufacturing automation—but I’m willing to be proven wrong for the opportunity to hear from  you.

Just a few ground rules, please:

• ·         Speak from your own experience, not a story you heard or something you saw on the Discovery Channel. Don’t divulge details that     would embarrass a company or an individual—just what the problem was in simplest of terms.
• ·         Talk about something that happened recently, not ten years ago.
• ·         Tell us what caused the problem
• ·         Tell us what the happened as a result of the problem—for example, the anonymous company was written up for quality, the company was fined $100,000, the company was invited off the retailer’s shelves, etc.
• ·         Tell us if (and if so, how) a recurrence of the error has been corrected
• ·         Tell us if you think a barcode related problem will never happen again at that company.

Enough from me.

Now it’s your turn to speak.

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.