Operators Manuals User guide

06/08 27 51170 Rev. 1
Appendix I: Barcodes
What Is A Barcode, and How Does It work?
Barcodes are part of a voluntary marking standard that has been adopted by
manufacturers, distributors, retailers and carriers.
• A barcode gives a products or container a unique identifier that can be used to
distinguish it from the millions of other products or containers that are produced
worldwide.
• Barcodes are used to identify people (ID badges), locations, products,
stocking/inventory levels, and documents, such as patent files.
• In many cases, barcode labels are a piece of the overall solution to customers
needs to improve accuracy and processing time.
Every bar, mark, number and letter relays important information to the software
program. From the Product ID prompt the operator can quickly enter in a different
Product ID to switch between products, or recall all the information associated with
each product. The following data is programmed by using these symbols on the
ticket.
• Product ID • Product Description
• Product total Box Count • Gross, Tare and Net Weights
Symbology
The mapping between messages and barcodes is called a Symbology. The
specification of a Symbology includes the following.
• The encoding of the single digits/characters of the message.
• The start and stop markers into bars and space.
• The size of the quiet zone required to be before and after the barcode.
• The computation of a checksum, which is a simple redundancy check to
protect the integrity of data.
Barcode Ticket Formats
Four of the numerous standardized formats used to support Fairbanks products for
the Barcodes Tickets are listed below.
• UPC Shipping Container Code
• EAN (Originated for the European Standard)
• Control Label Format
• Human Readable