Let me clarify what this article is about. There is never a bad time to verify your barcodes; neither is there a best time. NEVER. Barcodes must always work right.

But when is it not the time to not verify your barcodes? Sorry about the double negative…

Here is another run at it. It is never a good time to take unnecessary risks, I have always found the following two scenarios to be ironic:

Scenario 1: The Good Times

Business is rocking. You are breaking records, cranking out the product at and above capacity. It’s finger-tip steering but everything is working like a well-oiled machine.  The challenges keep coming and you keep maneuvering and succeeding, it’s like the healthcare industry in the early days of COVID. It was a steep climb with many obstacles. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers were sprinting in a marathon. Some things had to give, and sometimes barcode quality was neglected. The irony: It wasn’t OK, but everyone understood.

Scenario 2: The Bad Times

Good times can have a short tail. Industries lack agility. Covid began to decline. Ramping up is fast. Ramping down is not. Almost every day another pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturer announces massive layoffs or restructuring. Entire departments are downsized at best and terminated at worst. Quality assurance is often among the first to go. The irony: it isn’t OK, but everyone understands.

It’s never a good idea to relax quality, to limit or postpone making sure your barcodes are scannable, the encoded data correctly parsed. It is not a good practice in the good times or the bad times to neglect barcode quality. But the most important time to verify barcode quality and compliance is when you have the most to lose. And that would be during the bad times. You’re scrambling for survival and expose the company to one of the risks most likely to take you down: keeping your product moving through your supply chain.

The Best Time to Neglect Quality?

In the Good Times scenario, the justification for neglecting barcode verification is based on time pressure while the company is breaking production records to meet record-breaking demand. The supply chain is still vulnerable to the barcode, the connective tissue in the chain to your customers, whose orders and payments will also break records in those good times. Not a good time risk serving them, but not the worst time to do so. There is plenty of money changing hands but there is a finite amount of time. The fallacy here is that one mistake, which was made in a record-breaking small amount of time, will take exponentially more time to correct and prevent. Where is the efficiency in that?

In the Bad Times scenario, the justification for neglect of barcode quality verification is based on limited funds. The numbers don’t lie but the optics make sound decision-making more difficult. We must appear to inflict pain equally, we must “…cut to the bone.” So out goes barcode quality and compliance along with excess production capacity and inventory but upstream and downstream. Out goes the baby with the bathwater.

Time or Money?

Barcode verifiers are indeed a cost but they are also a cost saving. In almost all cases they pay for themselves.  If there is a problem with this, it is that the savings are usually intangible:

• A non-scanning barcode was detected and corrected before the packages were printed. The ideal time.
• An incorrectly structured data string detected in a batch of printed packages before release to logistics. Could be better but not disastrous.
• Master cartons on pallets that don’t scan at the distribution center or the hospital receiving dock. All the money is spent, and payments are not forthcoming.

A Cost that Pays For Itself

A verifier could have prevented all of that for well under $10,000. A testing service like Barcode Test could have prevented it for as little as $25.

When is the most important time to verify barcodes? The best time is always. But the most important time is when you have the most to lose– when the market is adjusting, when you can least afford a mistake, a delay, or a rejected shipment.

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