What is Barcode Validation?
Friday, December 21, 2007
Posted in: Barcodes
Barcode Verification Only Manages 1/2 the Risk
“Validation is to spelling what verification is to penmanship.”
Think about it. Spelling is making sure the word is really a word. After all, a misspelled word may not be recognizable as a word at all, and therefore devoid of meaning. Utterly useless, or worse: a misspelled word could closely represent something it was not intended to be: a different word. We’ve all experienced the sometimes hilarious consequences of a computer spell-checker gone mad. Another example is when foreign-born people sometimes try to spell English words based on how they sound (to them—not to native speakers). Just last week I was given an article written by a friend of mine from Sri Lanka. In one sentence, he was talking about “qualities”. But he hears the “qua” sound as “co” and so when he tried to write the word “qualities” his knowledge of English and spell check conspired to write “colitis”. It gave the sentence a whole new meaning.
Validation of a barcode means checking the barcode against the database to which it refers for product lookup, to make sure the barcode represents the product it is intended to represent.
How could a validation error occur? There are numerous error opportunities. Companies with multiple product families and numerous products within a family can accidentally mis-assign the number from one product to another. Another fairly common validation error is making a number assignment mistake, wither in zero-suppression or when redefining a UPC-A as an EAN-13. In the latter case, many people mistakenly believe that an EAN-13 is just a UPC-A with a leading zero. It is not, but when a leading zero is added, the code then represents a completely different number and quite possibly, a completely different product that already bears that number. Disaster. And there are numerous other creating ways of committing validation disaster.
How can one avoid validation mistakes? -By validating of course.
Scan the barcode with a validation device with the retail number assignment database on board or available as a database lookup. See what product the barcode refers to and compare that lookup to the product or package. If they don’t match exactly, you’ve just saved yourself and your company (or customer) a retail channel meltdown.
You thought your verifier also validated the barcode? Really? Important as verification is, all it does is to ensure that the barcode can be decoded by the scanner. Verification is just penmanship. All a verifier does is to make sure the symbol will scan, not that it represents an actual product.
It is not accurate to say that verification is more important than validation, or vice versa.
Both are extremely important. Validation, however, is almost never discussed.
For more information, contact a Fotel barcode quality technician.
I’m in need of info on implementation of barcode validation & verification
Posted by on 04/09 at 08:14 AM