Equipment bar-coding

[SceneMaster]

I was thinking today about bar-coding of equipment and I wondered what the most common symbologie is used. What is the standard used for bar-coding equipment?

 

On a side note what do shops (not books and ISBN just standard pricing bar-codes) usually use as their symbologie and can bar-code readers generally cope with several symbologies?

 

I know this is 100% tech stage but it is related to it.

 

I found this site but it doesn’t tell you what the standard symbologie is for shops in the UK and it certainly doesn’t tell you what the standard symbologie is for equipment coding. I would guess CODE 128 for equipment but for shops I really don’t have any idea. :)

 

Anyway one know for either situation?

[dbuckley]

I was thinking today about bar-coding of equipment and I wondered what the most common symbologie is used.

 

Other than on stuff in shops (see later), almost certainly code 39.

 

On a side note what do shops (not books and ISBN just standard pricing bar-codes) usually use as their symbologie and can bar-code readers generally cope with several symbologies?

 

I've never seen a shop barcode that isnt EAN. Even when they use private ranges (ie M&S) they are still EAN barcodes.

 

Most barcode readers can read many symbologies, and you can program them to accept or ignore those you wish to use. Some symbologies have well known checksum algorithms, and in these cases the reader can usually be programmed to act differently depending if the barcode is valid or not from the perspective of the barcode.

 

Some general advice - never assume barcodes are going to be unique and use them as a primary key in a database, dont call readers scanners, 'cos everyone knows what a scanner is, and if you are using alphanumerics so you can have more numbers, use base 31, no vowels, so barcodes like *yrfckd* dont come out more explicitly :-)

[mac.calder]

I was thinking today about bar-coding of equipment and I wondered what the most common symbologie is used. What is the standard used for bar-coding equipment?

 

On a side note what do shops (not books and ISBN just standard pricing bar-codes) usually use as their symbologie and can bar-code readers generally cope with several symbologies?

 

I know this is 100% tech stage but it is related to it. 

 

I found this site but it doesn’t tell you what the standard symbologie is for shops in the UK and it certainly doesn’t tell you what the standard symbologie is for equipment coding. I would guess CODE 128 for equipment but for shops I really don’t have any idea. :)

 

Anyway one know for either situation?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

IIRC it's usually UPC-A for shops - but most barcode readers will interperet a variety of different types of barcodes, so you usually have a wide choice

[dbuckley]

IIRC it's usually UPC-A for shops

 

Once upon a time true that was true.

 

UPC-A is a subset of EAN, the difference being that country codes are two digit for EAN, and one digit for UPC-A, the practically of the matter being that if you can read EAN you've included UPC-A.

[SceneMaster]

Ok, so for equipment bar-coding I should used code 39? Shops use EAN in almost all cases and UPC-A will be read by an EAN reader ok and vice versa?

 

Thanks for you help,

 

:blink:

[dbuckley]

I believe you have the gist of it.

 

And just FYI, you can get nice aluminiumized look barcode labels from RS that stick fairly well to stuff...

[Doug kelly]

Hi

 

When we started Barcoding our equipment for a certain PAT system we had to use a certain type of barcodes as they were all the machine would read. I can't remember of the top of my head which ones they were. Are you barcoding for a specific program? If so I would check if it needs a specific type or not.\

 

 

Doug