Barcode Verification and Barcode Expertise
Friday, July 17, 2009
Posted in: Verification
Here’s a newsflash for you: we live in an age where technology is considered the solution to all problems. Yes, I said all problems, from the cost of the U.S. health care system right down to (could you see this coming) barcode quality. This is not just my opinion: a direct competitor’s website says “The Verifier should be the barcode expert in your organization, …(here’s the part I like best)…removing the burden of knowledge from your staff.”
Knowledge is such a burden. We must be rid of it. As soon as possible.
Balderdash.
It would make my life, as a barcode expert, so much easier if it worked like that—but in 36 years in the barcode industry, it has never worked that way. Never.
Opinions are a burden. Knowledge is not a burden. Wrong opinions are the most burdensome of burdens. Knowledge is the path out of burden.
A barcode verifier is like a microscope, or a ruler. It is a tool. It gives the user new and better eyeballs with which to see what’s going on. Better eyeballs give the brain more and better information; a more informed brain makes better decision. A verifier does not—indeed, cannot—interpret what is going on or tell the user why. A brain does that.
And speaking of eyeballs—those are the best tool in the barcode quality toolbox. I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably never be finished saying it. And yet, only a few of the places I visit even have a magnifier on site. And those who do are often somewhat embarrassed about it. It’s so, oh I don’t know, 20th Century.
Well, barcode-related liability is still liability. And high quality barcodes are still a strategic advantage to vendors who provide them, prove that they do, and use it as a marketing tool. And why shouldn’t they?
A high quality, ISO-certified barcode verifier is a very important part of the overall program, and it’s important to get the right one for your specific situation. But knowledge is just as important---contrary to what others may perpetrate, the verifier never replaces knowledge. Never.
And an essential component of knowledge is the ability to see what the verifier sees.
The verifier and the magnifier, a nice low power 8X or 10X magnifier, are all anybody ever needs to scrutinize a barcode and tell what’s going on. That and a little knowledge.
