http://www.fotel.com/blog/ Barcode Label Blog en info@fotel.com Copyright 2008 2008-12-05T15:59:01-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/third-party-barcode-testing/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/third-party-barcode-testing/#When:15:59:01Z It’s a very common scenario: you have a non-local vendor who prints your barcodes. Let’s say it’s a gift card or a product package. You’ve done your due diligence: the vendor knows you hold him accountable for barcode quality: you’ve defined the expected ANSI grade and you have specified when, how and with what verifier you expect reports. All the bases are covered—so you think. Nevertheless, your customer has just notified you that your first-read rates are substandard and you might be getting fined.How can this happen?  Well, assuming the problem at the vendor isn’t an out-of-calibration verifier or an imager-based verifier that doesn’t test print contrast or reflectivity or some other hardware issue, the problem could be a basic lack of understanding about quality testing.We visited a printer recently where just such a problem arose. They had state-of-the-art verifiers and a person in charge of quality tasked to test barcode output according to a proscribed program. We were sent there because their customer, in spite of all these precautions, had received a quality action from their customer, a major retailer. The problem? The quality guy thought his job was to scan—and scan, and scan and scan—each barcode until he got the grade his boss wanted. Then he saved that record and moved on to the next barcode and repeated the procedure.   Up until that point, his boss was happy. Now the whole job was in jeopardy and the customer’s confidence in the vendor was mortally wounded. How could the situation be resolved? What to do?This is a situation in which an independent barcode auditor is probably the only immediate solution. The long-range solution, of course, is to retrain (or replace) the quality guy, but the quick and effective fix is to get unbiased, third-party barcode quality testing in place, and fast.  Third-party barcode testing and auditing services, while somewhat exotic, are neither unheard-of nor necessarily expensive. A good independent barcode test lab does not need to be a one-size-fits-all solution, although where there is either willful or ignorant misrepresentation of quality as in the scenario above, the independent barcode tester might have to camp out at the vendor site in order to assure accurate, unbiased sampling. The test procedure is one thing; pulling the samples to be tested is another; both are crucial to viable, clean test results.Third-party barcode test services need not be long-term relationships. A good barcode lab should work quickly and efficiently to establish a baseline from which a customer should be able to make intelligent decisions going forward about the vendor’s ability to produce an acceptable product. If the vendor is capable of meeting the quality specification, then the only remaining issue is whether or not they want to. There are no other excuses, and the source of the quality problem and their future relationship with the customer comes into a very clear focus. At the 10,000 foot level this all seems ludicrous. What can somebody possibly be thinking when they blatantly sabotage a quality-assurance initiative when poor quality will reveal itself relatively quickly downstream? Don’t people understand that you simply cannot conceal poor quality?There are basically two answers to such a question. When someone in a quality-control position is deliberately passing sub-par product to inflict injury on an individual or an organization, that is one thing; more often, sub-par product gets past an inspector who is either untrained or is ill-trained in what doing a good job looks like. One example of this is the inspector we encountered in this scenario. Another is the inspector who thinks they are paid to fail everything. Both are lurking liabilities to their employers and their customers—and their future, and themselves. Most often such people sincerely intend to do a good job and truly believe that they are doing a good job.  And their colleagues and supervisors also believe this—which makes it more difficult to detect and correct the problems they cause.  Independent Barcode Testing and Barcode Auditing Services can help detect and even prevent this devastating scenario. A third-party Barcode lab can validate that an in-house testing program is performing as it should. Some testers offer training programs to help in-house quality personnel get up to speed and stay current on barcode quality procedures, and proper use of barcode verifiers and interpreting verifier output.For information about barcode testing, auditing and quality training services, see http://www.fotel.com/barcode-solutions/service  Barcodes 2008-12-05T15:59:01-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/understanding-barcode-verification-reports/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/understanding-barcode-verification-reports/#When:16:26:00Z Understanding Verifier-Speak - and SilenceUnderstanding a verifier report can be a challenge—and I don’t mean relating “decodability” to your print process. There is plenty of information out there about that—and if you want our input about understanding any of the ANSI or Traditional parameters, just ask.In fact, most—nearly all—of the questions we get are spoken in terms of a particular parameter or grade but pretty much nobody even notices it when the verifier fails, time after time, to produce a grade at all. Scan—no result.Scan—no result.Scan—Symbol Grade D due to decodability.Scan—no result.Ditto four more times.Client calls and asks about “decodability” without so much as a mention that it took 8 tries to get anything, but the anything (all one of it) was decodability. Dare I say, “No it wasn’t” but then, I don’t even know about the eight deafening silences.People, it means something when the verifier tries and fails to get even a decode. What does it mean? I have no idea—but it definitely means some­thing. And it probably isn’t good—but it’s much, much worse if you don’t know what it is. And it will probably bite you.A verifier is a very aggressive decoder. It has to be because it can’t grade a symbol if it can’t decode it.Here’s another scenario we get a lot. The client is on the phone. His customer has complained, or even fined the client. So the client is trying to figure out what’s wrong, and maybe trying to build a defense. “The verifier is scanning the symbol with no problem” the client exclaims. “What’s the ANSI grade” we ask. “It’s an F but the symbol is scanning just fine!” the client spins.   So when the verifier with its very aggressive decode isn’t consistently decoding the symbol, it is significant. Very significant. And it leaves the user with pretty much no clue as to what’s wrong. What to do.The first thing to do is to get a low power magnifier—I prefer something around 8X but you may prefer something different. What you want to do is examine the narrow elements (bars and spaces). These are the building blocks of virtually every linear symbol. Most (but not all) linear symbols have only two element values: wide and narrow. UPC and Code 128 have more than two, but don’t let that discourage you. Look at the narrow bars—you should see that there are many of them across the symbol. Try to visually memorize how wide the narrow bar is—and then look at the narrow spaces. If they are not very similar in width to the narrow bar, this could be the source of your decode problem.Next, using your magnifier, notice if there are defects in the symbol: voids in the bars and/or spots in the spaces: these can really confuse a verifier. A major void in a bar can look like two narrow bars with a narrow space between them; a spot in a space can look like an extra bar. Defects throw off the correct bar and space count in a symbol and a verifier doesn’t like this.Now, examine the edges of the bars. Are they uneven or ragged? Are they different on the left side than on the right side? Are the bars wavy or jagged from the top of the symbol to the bottom? Finally, notice if the bars are nice and opaque and the spaces nice and clean: there should be no show-through of the background through the bars. Ideally the bars should be black against a white background but if the barcode is printed in a color, the bars should never be a red or red-containing color. Green is usually OK for bars. Likewise the background is ideally white but should never be green or green-containing. Red is usually OK for the background.Correct these problems if you can and rescan the symbol. Your decode rate should improve enough to show you what ANSI parameter is (or parameters are) controlling the final grade.If all of these attempts fail, send an actual sample of the symbol or email a PDF of it to a reputable test lab for evaluation.   Another thing to pay attention to is when your verifier speaks in extremes—first an ANSI B, then an F, then an A, then a D. This is also significant but sometimes difficult to pin down. Is the variability related to different areas in the barcode height? Does it tend to grade one way at the top and another way in the middle?The key to solving many barcode quality issues is not to reply too heavily on the technology. Use your eyes. And if necessary, seek reputable help. Barcodes 2008-11-18T16:26:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/what-is-a-barcode/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/what-is-a-barcode/#When:19:15:00Z What is the definition of “barcode”? Barcodes are a technology. Like most things technical, the barcode world has developed a lexicon of its own. Of course this includes a long list of acronyms which make our technical communications faster. But ultimately we serve non-technical people in non-technical occupations. For example, as experts in barcode quality, we deal with graphics designers, printers and corporate quality assurance people, distributors and retailers. Often these people know a something about barcode quality but need help understanding the parameters that control barcode performance—things like “decodability” and “modulation.”  And so we help them with the definitions and try to provide them with examples to make it real for them and give them a sense of what to do. The other day a colleague with years of experience, a respectable technical education and who is still smart asked a brilliant question. She said, “What is the definition of ‘barcode’?” The room went silent for a moment before the responses began. “A barcode is automatic identification,” somebody offered. “No, that’s the technology, not the definition,” another objected. “Barcodes are patterns of lines and spaces that represent something,” a third person reasoned. “That’s how they look, but not what they are.”  And so it went. After about 30 minutes, with numerous thoughts and ideas proffered, we gave up. What is a barcode? A simple enough question but a room full of people with industry insight and experience couldn’t answer it. A fascinating situation. We spend day after day, year after years dissecting traditional versus ANSI verification, check digit algorithms, X dimension calculations, concatenation schemes, application identifiers, subset shifts, linear, stacked and now 2D symbologies, and we can’t even define what a barcode is. Fascinating. Anybody out there ready to offer a definition for a barcode? Not a definition that describes how it works or how it’s used—a true definition that, well, defines what it is. Any takers? Barcodes 2008-08-12T19:15:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/third-party-barcode-test-labs/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/third-party-barcode-test-labs/#When:18:56:00Z What are the Benefits of Barcode Verification? Discussions about barcode verification usually trigger two strongly held positions:1- “What is it” is usually a monolog about what it is not: it is not validation. 2- “How not to do it” is usually a monolog about verifiers versus scanners and how the latter is not the former. Discussions of barcode verification often contain a third stealth agenda item: 3- Convincing you that I’m smart.   Barcode Verification is Risk ManagementGiven these subtle limitations the fact remains, verification does much to optimize supply chain performance and manage vendor risk from retailer fines. Barcode Verification doesn’t do everything but it does a lot. A more helpful next question is, are there alternative ways of getting it done? The answer is independent barcode testing.Third-Party Barcode Test Labs Gets It Done Right Third-party or Indepentant barcode test labs can be an invaluable source of information and insight into barcode quality and performance. On the surface, it appears that an independant barcode test lab doesn’t do anything more than what you yourself can do with a high-quality barcode verifier. This is in fact true, if you can extrapolate from verifier test results what is occurring in a print process and to make accurate and realistic recommendations for how to improve symbol performance in that print process. Third-party barcode test labs test thousands of barcodes reproduced by every conceivable print method on every conceivable substrate and subject to every conceivable process variable. And as barcode experts, an independant test lab must stay current with a constantly evolving body of specifications and attributes that comprise barcode structure and applications that are every bit as critical to barcode performance as decodability, modulation and symbol contrast. In this way, independent barcode test labs have the breadth of generalists and the depth of engineers.Third-Party Barcode Test Labs are UnbiasedThird-party barcode test labs are often employed as dispute resolvers—the ones who have final say about “who is right and who is wrong.” While this isn’t incorrect, neither is it complete. Third party labs can provide an unbiased, outside check on internal quality procedures where those internal processes are mission-critical (and where aren’t they?). Barcode labs can help solidify vendor-customer relationships by helping everybody achieve and maintain credibility more quickly. Barcode labs can help avoid problems and when problems arise, to resolve them more quickly, drawing on their years of experience and body of knowledge.Third-Party Barcode Test Labs are Cost-EffectiveFinally, an independent barcode test lab can be a cost-effective alternative to an expensive on-site verifier. Think of it as buying a service such as lawn care or house cleaning. Sure you can purchase the equipment but then you have to know how to use it, maintain it and eventually replace it. You can purchase a lot of lab time for the cost of an entry-level verifier. Sure, it’s an ongoing expense but that’s good news if you intend to run an ongoing business. That is the goal, right? Do you know of a highly qualified Third-Party Barcode Test Center? Now, you do! Barcodes 2008-06-13T18:56:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/future-of-barcoding/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/future-of-barcoding/#When:19:36:00Z The Future of Barcodes- That is a bold statement for several reasons. For one, it assumes there will be a future for barcodes: there are many voices, from the RFID community and others, forecasting the demise of barcodes. Another voice, or maybe it is more the momentum of history seen as a future trajectory, envisions barcodes doing what they do and looking like the look.The Evolution of Barcodes- Many of us in the barcode industry think it is possible that the historical role of the barcode will evolve. In fact it has already started. This will affect not only how barcodes look in the future, but how dependant the role of the barcode will be for the success of the complete supply chain cycle.New Benefits of Barcodes- Think about it. The Ubiquitous UPC, as it is now used, is more of a model number than a serial number. To illustrate, every 12 ounce can of Coke® sold anywhere on the planet bears the same code. You might be able to extract some generalized information about sales of 12 ounce cans of Coke®, but you can never singulate a particular can from the millions of other, virtually identical cans of the same product.And why would you want to singulate one individual from another? There are already myriad reasons, and the list is growing. You may want to control freshness; you might want to track product movement; you might want to distinguish product from specific sources. And here’s the current hot button: you might have to recall product from a specific batch, date-range, manufacturing source or distribution channel. None of this functionality is available in machine-readable form from the UPC.This is more than just a data capacity issue. We already have the technology to encode vast amounts of data in a relatively small space: the back side of many state drivers’ licenses is evidence of that. The greater challenge is serialization: to singulate cans of Coke® you must mark each can uniquely while still performing database look-up for pricing, inventory movement and replenishment. Database lookup can be accomplished with a family code or data range within which individual siblings reside. A vastly greater challenge is individualized product marking. The item cost of the UPC on billions of identically-marked product is nearly too small to calculate (which is why barcode is impossible to compare with RFID tags). Uniquely marking each SKU changes the cost profile drastically—if it continues to be done the say it’s done today. Big distinction.The Next Generation of Barcodes- Since inception back in the early 1970’s the presence of the barcode has been inexorably linked to the product reprographics. The evolving needs of tracking and automation have begun to unlock that linkage. Advances in high speed serialized marking are making it feasible to singulate items in huge populations of otherwise identical commodities. It hasn’t happened in barcoding at the item level in the retail channel—yet. The Dependability of Barcodes- The changing role of the barcode has increased the importance of barcode quality.  Barcode quality needs to be accessed at every step of product development. What type of barcode is best for the job? How can you assure data accuracy? What barcode printing technology is best to use? What is the best location for the barcode? How do you measure the quality of a barcode? What is barcode verification? If a barcode does not scan, or decodes the wrong information- all barcoding benefits could end up costing not only loss of money, but loss of business. Barcodes are here to stay, but don’t expect the symbols to be applied, used, look or perform like they do today. Barcodes 2008-05-12T19:36:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/iso-certification/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/iso-certification/#When:21:51:00Z ISO Certification presents some strange and exotic challenge to the companies who achieve it, and some strange and exotic combinations of services for companies who support them. A case-in-point is two ISO-related services available from Fotel.  1-Honeywell Quick Check Verifier ISO Re-Certificaiton Service-  We are factory trained and authorized to test and re-certify Honeywell Quick Check verifiers for IS0/IEC 15426-1 for linear barcodes.  When the ISO movement began a decade ago, many quality-minded printing and packaging companies were early adopters. In recent years, food and pharmaceutical companies are joining them.  Here ISO certification means documenting the performance of every device in your process, including quality-assurance instruments. Thus, barcode verifiers must be re-certified, along with volumetric and other measurement devices, on an annual basis. 2-Precision Imaging- Legacy manually-drafted artworks, file copies of photo plots and even CAD and Gerber files all must be re-imaged and archived for ISO compliance.  Fotel’s engineering roots include precision photo-tool and mask imagine, and this has morphed into CAD file construction and data conversion so that design files can be imaged into—you guessed it, photo tools and masks.  Manufacturing process that utilize photo tools and masks include printed circuit etching, photo-chemical machining, precision screen printing, metal finishing, encoder manufacturing and related industries. Many companies in these industries have become ISO certified, and that requires their critical design files to be archived.  How did Fotel end up in two such diverse and seemly unrelated services in the ISO world? Well, it’s a long and (we think) interesting story—and one which actually does have some logic. But that’s a story for another day. We can sum it up in one simple statement: it’s all about quality. Barcodes 2008-04-21T21:51:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/imb-end-of-the-postnet-barcode-for-usps/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/imb-end-of-the-postnet-barcode-for-usps/#When:21:08:00Z IMB- The Intelligent Mail Barcode: The USPS Goes High Tech You might be surprised to find out where the latest and most highly-efficient barcode is being adopted: the United States Postal Service. Their “magic bullet” is the Intelligent Mail Barcode or IMB and it will go into widespread use in May 2009.  IMB is already in use (since September 2006) for letter mail. Its adoption will mark the end of the Postnet barcode, although it is visually obvious that IMB evolved from Postnet lineage. Like any successful evolution, IMB has adapted to encode much more information. Whereas Postnet supported critical automatic sortation date, IMB does that and much more, in a barcode that is only 3 bars longer. IMB can accommodate in one barcode what formerly required three lines of data and can include user-defined data.  IMB enhances the ability of the postal service to sort and track letters and flats, and track individual mail pieces. with greater visibility to customers.  The benefits to mailers include the ability to incorporate several functions into the IMB that used to require a second or third data set on the address label, such as address correction service (ACS) data, Confirm or compliance with Move Update data  and of course the ability to comply and qualify for automation discount postal rates.  Benefits to mailers and their customers are the greater visibility of mailings to destination through enhanced tracking tools, and user-defined identification of up to a billion pieces within a mailing. And, for what its worth, IMB looks better and un-clutters the mailing label.  Is there a downside to IMB? Besides the expense and disruption of implementation, its pretty much a total plus for everybody. But the IMB must work for the benefits to be meaningful, and herein lies perhaps a yet-undiscovered disadvantage of IMB in comparison to Postnet.   A well-seasoned, experienced mail shop handler can decipher Postnet into a ZIP code by eye. Nobody known to me can do that with IMB without a scanner.  But there’s good news here too—Honeywell has a great little hand-held scanner 4600G that can not only decode the IMB, it can also perform basic quality checks on it as well.  You heard it here first. Barcodes 2008-04-21T21:08:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/free-barcodes/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/free-barcodes/#When:20:58:00Z Sometimes free stuff is worth what you pay for it. Sometimes it is worth even less than that. The web is well populated with free barcode generator sites. Why should you pay Fotel $25 or more for a barcode file when you can get it for free?  It is an excellent question and I’m glad you asked. There is no single answer. The complete answer is an aggregate of many factors. In other words you have to know what you are ordering before you’ll know what you’ve got.  The barcode file itself is a good starting point. In its most basic form, a computer file is either a graphics file or a font. Barcode generators usually produce a barcode from a font, but not always. Speaking in the most general terms, the graphics file is better than a font file. The reason for this is more technical than most people would want to know, but here is a layperson’s explanation.   A font places the characters, whether they are alphanumeric characters in words and sentences or bar-space patterns in a barcode, in a single line, placed at a defined spacing from each other. Character placement and spacing is not critical with letters and numbers, but it is very critical for barcodes. For example, in the UPC system, the difference between bar and space widths in some characters is as small as .0010”. If the computer rounds off the accuracy of positioning the font, the bar and space pattern for the intended character can closely resemble the wrong character. This is called a transposition error and when it happens, the check digit becomes a mismatch and the barcode fails.  Barcode generators usually try to make it very simple for the user—so simple, they omit some design choices that could be critical. The most-often omitted parameter is bar-width reduction. This compensates for press gain by narrowing the bars in anticipation that they will gain it back on press. In some print processes the compensation is minimal, but in others it can be 50% of nominal bar width, so if bar width is not compensated, the symbol gains more width than the tolerance permits. Again, the barcode fails.  There are myriad other error-opportunities with online barcode generators, that a reputable service bureau can help you avoid. But the bottom line is liability for non-scanning or poorly performing barcodes. The question you have to consider is, do I have risk if this barcode doesn’t scan as it should?  If the answer is anything but “no”, then consider carefully what you are actually saving when you use an online barcode generator. Fines from major retailers are $100,00 or more for bad barcodes from their vendors.   Was that “free” barcode really free, or was it actually very, very expensive?  Barcodes 2008-03-14T20:58:00-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/barcode-verification-reliability/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/barcode-verification-reliability/#When:15:52:01Z Gage R & R in Barcode VerificationWhether or not you’ve thought about it, a barcode verifier is a gage. And like any gage, reliability is everything. How is gage reliability assured? In the world of statistical process control (SPC), ISO9000 and Six Sigma, Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (GR&R) is a method for measuring process variation.   Apologies to those whose belief about barcode verification is “we’ve never had a problem so we don’t need to do anything.”  But I can’t honestly say that I hope you are right—because you are wrong. Even if your process is very well controlled, if you don’t measure, you don’t even know how good your process is. And you can’t measure without calibrated gages.  ISO conformance is the test for barcode verifier repeatability and reproducibility. A manufacturer of an ISO-compliant verifier must demonstrate that their instrument meets ISO/IEC 15426-01 specifications for the particular type of barcode that unit tests: for example, Linear Symbols.The thing about conformance to specification is, there is a third factor that is implied but not explicitly addressed. That third factor is time. Time is the dimension over which change takes place. In the case of an opto-electronic instrument such as a barcode verifier, the change factor itself has at least two dimensions: rate and degree. Poorly designed instruments, or beautifully designed instruments made with poor quality components often exhibit electronic instability that can be to a high degree over relatively short spans of time. The environment in which the instrument is used, or how it is used can also affect instrument stability. Rough handling or haphazard storage during nonuse intervals can also accelerate instrument instability.  Repeatability and reproducibility of results are also a function of how the instrument is used. For example, wand-based barcode verifiers reply on the human operator to move the input device over the symbol. A highly complex and sophisticated timing algorithm extracts bar/space width measurements from the movement of the wand by a human operator. Even the most experienced user cannot move a wand over a barcode at a perfectly steady speed. R & R are compromised, even in a calibrated, compliant instrument. Add to this the additional factors of ambient light and possibly wand angle, and test results are even more un-repeatable and un-reproducible.  These factors are eliminated with the very advanced Quick Check 890 from Honeywell Imaging and Mobility. Wand movement and potential variations are eliminated by the automatic scan path: the QC890 has no moving parts. Scan angle is fixed within the housing, which also eliminates any influence from ambient light. Even test aperture is automatically configured. The QC890 virtually eliminates operator-induced variations in symbol grading.  Annual calibration and re-certification closes the loop on R & R. Barcodes 2008-02-27T15:52:01-06:00 http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/bisg-carton-format/ http://www.fotel.com/blog/post/bisg-carton-format/#When:13:23:00Z What’s the buzz about New BISG carton Label Format?Recently, many publishers may have noticed that certain retailers are now requiring that inbound cartons be marked according the carton marking requirements established by the Book Industry Study Group. These guidelines might have been a recommendation in the past, but many of the larger retailers are now requiring the format be used to facilitate the receiving and inventory processes on inbound shipments.We suggest that publishers with sales to major vendors such as Barnes & Noble Dist. Center, Baker & Taylor and Ingram Books should use the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) suggested carton labeling specifications. The barcodes in these labels incorporate field identifiers that help the vendors in their automation processes. These vendors threaten non-compliance charge backs if these specifications are not used. If you are unsure whether or not your cartons require this specific format, it is always best to check with the retailer or vendor first before shipping any cartons to a specific facility. A link to the BISG carton labeling format is supplied below for reference.    http://www.bisg.org/docs/shipping_label_guidelines.pdf Fotel can provide BISG compliant carton labels to satisfy these requirements to ensure that your shipment will be accepted and not be subject to costly, unnecessary fines or charge backs. Barcodes 2008-02-27T13:23:00-06:00