[AT] This might come in handy while shopping for tractor parts

[Gene's Wowway e-mail]

Dean, I enjoyed your recap of the UPC symbol.  I was on another side of the 
UPC intro in the early 70s---flexible packaging, primarily food packaging 
materials.  The grief we went through learning how to print those *&(&^$* 
things is  unforgettable!!

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dean VP
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:52 AM
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
Subject: Re: [AT] This might come in handy while shopping for tractor parts

Having spent much of my career in the Bar Code Industry I can comment on 
this a bit. First when discussing Bar code one needs to identify the version 
of Bar Code under discussion. In this case UPC is being discussed but there 
are several versions of UPC Bar Code. In the USA and Canada the 12 digit 
version (A) is used along with several shorter versions for specific 
products, priced imbedded codes or variable weight products.  Libraries and 
books have a version also. But the most generally common version in the US 
(version A) is the 12 digit version. It Does Not contain a country of origin 
identifier imbedded in the code. There is a version however that does have 
an imbedded country of origin in it and that is the 13 digit version called 
EAN (European Article Numbering) which obviously is used in Europe. I'm not 
up to date on whether the convention is being followed religiously (retired 
for 12 years) as to whether it is country of manufacturer or home country of 
seller.

The UPC code is not a very strong error checking code and succeeds in the 
grocery market w/o too many reading errors only because the code the scanner 
reads also must be on file on the checkout scanning system's hard disk. This 
reduces checkout errors to a level acceptable to users as well as customers. 
There are more read errors in the checkout lanes than what the industry 
prefers to talk about.

That level of error in reading is not acceptable for industrial applications 
so other codes other than UPC were invented with stronger error checking 
such as Interleaved 2 of 5, Code 11, Code 39, etc. Code 39 was widely used 
in industrial applications because it is a fully alphanumeric code and has a 
very low error rate whereas UPC is numeric only with a higher read error 
rate. The UPC code needed to make some compromises to allow ease of printing 
on multiple food product packaging materials, shapes and sizes. In many 
cases industrial and some consumer applications have moved to using Higher 
Density square codes. Where considerably higher density of information 
within the code is achieved.  Now, industry is moving to RFID, Radio 
Frequency Identification where a tag is attached to higher value products 
and is read at a distance using RF signals. The tags have dropped in cost 
over the last few years but are still too expensive to be used in low cost 
products such as those sold in a grocery store.

I was Director of POS operations for a company that installed the second 
grocery store UPC scanning system in the US in around 1973/74 time frame. 
NCR was the first company to install a UPC Grocery Store scanning system in 
the US at about the same time frame. At that time we were really pushing the 
state of the current technology and things didn't always go as planned. Both 
scanning as well as computer technology has improved dramatically since 
then.  The capability improved dramatically quickly but something unusual 
happened to slow things down in the Grocery industry for a while. This only 
time in my life where I have seen this happen. The labor unions and the 
consumers formed a coalition to try to stop the implementation of UPC code 
and bar code scanning in grocery stores. Several false rumors were started 
that confused the consumers about how accurate the systems were going to be 
and how much the technology was going to reduce labor requirements within 
the grocery industry. It took a few years to settle out and then there was a 
rush to implement scanning by all grocery stores.

Grocery stores work on very thin profit margins so even a small improvement 
in product pricing accuracy at the checkout stand has a dramatic impact on 
the stores profitability.  Reducing a thing called "under-rings" at the 
checkout stand would sometimes double store profits and pay for the scanning 
equipment in just a few short months. In the 1973/74 time frame each 
checkout lane with scanning cost about $80,000

Dean VP
Apache Junction, AZ

"If pilots' vision were as bad as economists', Amtrak would be profitable."

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com 
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Mike Sloane
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:18 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] This might come in handy while shopping for tractor parts

It is not true, unfortunately. See:

<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1824191/what_upc_barcode_numbers_mean.html>

Mike

On 1/19/2011 7:51 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or  China ?
>
> If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690, 691  or 692, the product is
> MADE IN CHINA.
> 471 is Made in  Taiwan .
>
> This is our right to know, but the government and related departments 
> never
> educate the public, therefore we have to educate ourselves.
>
> Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products
> "MADE IN CHINA ", so they don't show from which country it is made.
>
> However, you may now refer to the barcode -remember if the first 3 digits
> are for China&  Taiwan , and most other countries have 2 digits:
>
> 00 - 09 ...   USA&   CANADA
> 690-691-692 ... MADE IN  CHINA
> 471  ... Made in TAIWAN
> 49 ... JAPAN
> 30 - 37 ...   FRANCE
> 40 - 44 ...   GERMANY
> 50 ...   UK
>
> BUY USA&  CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0"
> at the beginning of the number which is USA and “09” is Canada .
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