Pages

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

An In Depth Look Into Barcode Scanners

By Bjorn O'connor


Barcode scanners are devices that can decode image representations of information into something meaningful. Such information varies widely. It could be the description of a product or the weight of a given product. When viewed with the naked eye, such information may not make sense to a person.

These devices may seem useless at first sight. One can appreciate their importance by considering their contributions to trade. If they were not available, each product would have to be manually inspected. Such a process would be difficult and would consume a lot of time.

To enable easier operation of such devices, there are international standards that govern the issuance of barcodes. This eliminates situations where similar codes represent the same product. Lack of such a system would be a recipe for confusion. Other than that, the process would not be economical since different products would require different devices.

Under such a system, there is no clashing. Barcodes provide all the necessary details. Information such as the place of manufacture can be easily represented. This eases the work of custom authorities. These codes could also provide product specific information such as the product brand and the grade.

The technology used here has facilitated online transactions. Such codes precisely describe whatever one wishes to procure. Chances of making mistakes are minimal with full product descriptions. One can easily track the chain of a product from the producer all the way to the final consumer.

This is advantageous for governments. It is much easier to tell who owns a given good. It is also easier to account for taxes when many products are involved. This reduces the revenue due to authorities that is sometimes lost.

This system represents voluminous information in the form of numbers and striped patterns. This saves storage space for product information as the people who deal with such systems understand what the numbers and patterns mean. With lesser data to store, an organization incurs lower costs in carrying the information. It is also easier to manipulate such data.

The developments in the electronics industry show how this technology can be positively utilized. Each electronic gadget has a unique code that fully describes it. Theft cases of electronic goods are nowadays minimal since such goods are easily tracked. This is due to the fact that no two devices can have similar codes.

Barcode scanners are nowadays used in a number of retail outlets. They are used to decode product details and facilitate the addition of the costs of any goods purchased. Theft in such outlets has tremendously decreased. This arises from the fact that these gadgets can be interfaced with other systems. Whenever any product is irregularly removed from such stores, an alarm is triggered. This alerts those in charge of security that something has been stolen.

All this underscores the importance of barcode scanners. Tracking product movement has now been made easier. Nevertheless, these gadgets should be appropriately used for optimal benefits.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment