WHAT ARE BAR CODES

Bar codes are widely used on consumer items. The Uniform Code Council Inc. (Lawrenceville, New Jersey, U.S.A.) manages the Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) system in the U.S.A. and Canada, while EAN International (Brussels, Belgium), through its Numbering Organizations (NOs), manages the International Article Numbering (EAN) system in over 90 other countries. The U.P.C. numbering system was the original system, from which the EAN system evolved.

In the early days, EAN signified European Article Numbering Association. Since countries from other continents joined the Association, the name was changed to International Article Numbering Association, currently the EAN International. The EAN acronym was, however, retained to refer to the numbering system and to the symbology.

The purpose of U.P.C. and EAN symbols (codes) is to facilitate automatic scanning of item numbers and associated price look-up at the point of sale (POS)---the checkout counter. The symbols can be scanned in an omnidirectional fashion---in any package orientation provided the symbol faces the scanner---at the POS.

When a customer buys groceries at the supermarket or consumer items at department store, discount store or other type of chain store, the cashier scans the bar code on each product with an infra-red gun or moves each product over a window where an invisible infra-red laser beam scans the bar code. The number goes into the computer which instantly shows the price of the product on the checkout display and adds up the bill. The computer keeps a record of all products sold and calculates stock levels. It can also be used to tell the retailer when to reorder items or work out which products are hot sellers and which are not moving at all.