How are Barcodes Used

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Barcodes of one type or another can be found in most industries. For example, barcode applications have transformed the manufacturing, processing, and tracking fields in the food and beverage, packaging, retail distribution, medical, pharmaceutical, electronics, automotive, and aerospace industries.

Barcodes are found in every electronic and consumer product, from your cell phone battery to the box holding your new running shoes. The use of 1-D or 2-D codes reduces overhead costs by automating and simplifying supply chain management, inventory, check-out, and purchasing.

Automate Tracking and Quality Control

Safety and liability are also drivers behind industry adoption of barcodes. In recent years, governments around the world have started to require medical devices and pharmaceutical manufacturers to apply machine-readable codes on every package down to individual medicine containers. Should a defective product reach a store shelf, automated tracking of every package will accelerate safety recalls while making quality-control data available to the entire supply chain.