Some of you might remember a column I wrote on July 2, 2002, "Bye Bye Bar Codes?", about the possible disappearance of the technology behind bar codes.
The technology might change, but the digits of the bar codes also will. In fact, they are going to increase from 12 to 13 or even 14 digits.
And this story taught me something I didn't know. We are using 13-digit codes in Europe while the US are only using 12-digit bar codes. Fascinating, isn't?
Kate Murphy, from the New York Times, starts her story with a little bit of hype, but it's fun anyway. Read on.
In a little more than two years, retailers in the United States and Canada will face a deadline that promises technological challenges akin to the Year 2000 computer problem.
Starting Jan. 1, 2005, the 12-digit bar codes retailers use to identify everything from cars to candy bars will go to 13 digits. The additional number (and associated bars and spaces) is enough to make checkout scanners seize up and make computers crash, perhaps disrupting entire supply chains.
The reason for expanding the 12-digit bar code, known as the Universal Product Code, is twofold. First, there is a shortage of U.P.C. numbers. "There's only a certain amount of 12-digit numbers, and we're going to run out," said John Terwilliger, vice president of global markets at the Universal Code Council, a nonprofit organization based in Lawrenceville, N.J., that assigns codes in the United States and Canada. Second, 13-digit bar codes are used almost everywhere else in the world. The council's European counterpart, EAN International, based in Brussels, assigns these numbers, called European Article Numbers, to companies in 99 nations. "Right now," Mr. Terwilliger said, "foreign importers have to get a 12-digit U.P.C. to do business over here, which they haven't been too happy about."
I checked: we are really using 13-digit bar codes here in Europe.
Foreign manufacturers currently pass on to consumers the cost of getting an additional bar code and creating special labels for products sold in the United States and Canada. "It's an added expense for them, and they have to recoup it somewhere," said Debra Shimkus, marketing manager at the Chicago Importing Company, a specialty food importer whose overseas suppliers are often incredulous when they are told they have to get new bar codes for their products before they can be sold in American groceries.
But moving to 13 digits may not be enough. The Universal Code Council and EAN International, which formed an alliance in 1996, strongly advise manufacturers and retailers to go a step further and prepare their systems to accommodate a 14-digit code.
I guess the costs involved for moving to 13 or 14 digits from 12 are certainly equivalent. So be prepared to change the bar codes for all your products -- I mean, if you sell something.
Source: Kate Murphy, The New York Times, Aug. 12, 2002
5:46:28 PM
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