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The tiny little town I live in is a crossroad with a gas station, a post office and a small diner which is a Saturday morning breakfast ritual for us and most of the town. Last spring an elderly [...]

The recent article about the longevity of barcodes triggered a range of responses. One comment referred to barcodes as the “weakest link” in the supply chain. There are many links in the supply [...]

This is not the first article we’ve published about barcode quality as risk management. But this one takes a different tack on the subject. Here we put a finer and sharper point on the issue. In [...]

Verifying a barcode may be more complicated than you think. It is more than a scanner. You don’t just get a verifier and press the button. It begins with getting the right verifier—they are not [...]

When barcodes scan incorrectly, or fail to scan altogether, it is always an unexpected event. It should not happen. There are five basic steps everyone can take to give a barcode every advantage [...]

The long term cost of small compromises in barcode quality can be huge. This can seem to be unimportant, but they grow into major factors that can lead to regret or even damage to a business. [...]

Everybody wants a shortcut. Something that gets you to your goal, whatever that may be, without undue delay, expense or obstacles. Shortcuts have trade-offs: that shorter route might be bumpy; [...]

  Decodability is one of the most difficult to understand of the barcode standards. The definition, “the ability of a barcode to be decoded” is simple but unclear for understanding its [...]

Barcode quality is risk management. This risk can take several forms. A chargeback is the cost of stickers and labor to over-label bad barcodes. But the damages do not end there. A further risk [...]

The total cost of ownership of a barcode verifier varies, but the right verifier can pay for itself over time.  Minor compromises in selecting the right verifier can increase risk. The wrong [...]