Barcode Scanning vs. Barcode Verifying Equipment
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Posted in: Barcodes
The term “scanning” has come to mean anything having to do with reading barcodes, including verifying. Consequently, those of us who specialize in barcode quality and verification are always asking inquirers what they mean when they ask for a scanner. Do they just want to read the barcode or do they want to test it against ANSI/ISO quality parameters?
Barcode Scanners are different than Barcode Verifiers
Somewhat better informed inquirers know they need to verify barcodes but would prefer to use a scanner because they cost substantially less than a verifier. Logically if one scanner can read a barcode, they all can, right? At this point I usually—but not always—resist the temptation to ask them why they continue to buy property, casualty and liability insurance, since they’ve probably never used it. Scanner A will not necessarily perform like scanner B because there is no industry standard, such as ANSI X3 that requires them to do so. Besides, even if the scanner costs about a tenth the cost of a verifier, will the $2000 or so dollars saved cover the cost of a quality action, a rejected job and possibly a lost client relationship?
Avoid Retailer Fines for poor-performing barcodes
Wal-Mart and others have rather famously imposed fines for vendors who send product with poor-performing barcodes, some fines in the $100’s of thousands. What is a $2000 savings against that? It is foolish and short-sighted.
When a scanner reads a barcode (or not), that is the entire “quality report”. A scanner is what engineers call a “go—no-go gage”. What it reports pales in comparison to what it doesn’t report. It is a high-performing barcode? As the print run continues, is the quality of the barcode drifting toward lower performance? Is it staying the same? A scanner won’t report any of this until a threshold between “scanning” and “Not scanning” is reached. And at that point, a scanner won’t tell you why. Even worse, another scanner might have reached that threshold much earlier, or may have even failed to read the barcodes at the start of the run.
Only a Barcode Verifier can measure the quality of your barcode
A true ISO/ANSI verifier will grade the quality of a barcode against nine parameters, any one of which could cause the barcode to perform poorly or fail. Used periodically throughout a print run, a verifier can detect and measure changes in each quality parameter. Vigilant press operators can use verifier reports to tweak press settings, optimize barcode quality and assure high performing barcodes from start to finish. High performance barcodes keep customers happy and vendor relationships healthy.
Be sure you have the right Barcode Verifier for the job
Barcodes that are used in the retail channels are a small part of the larger world of barcoding. It is important to use the correct verifier for the type of barcode being tested. While the technology is pretty much all the same, the engineering of various types of barcodes differs. We will explore this aspect of verification in a future blog....
