Bar coding is an automatic identification and data collection technology commonly referred to as Auto ID. The most visible and familiar bar codes are the ones found in retail and grocery stores. These bar codes (parallel, adjacent bars) are found on many product labels or printed on the products themselves.

Auto ID technology has been in use for more than 30 years especially with shipping/receiving, warehousing and manufacturing companies.

As technology advanced to where the personal computer has become the indispensable tool for business operations Auto ID technology has gained global acceptance to provide immediate and accurate data collection.

Over the years many industries have development standards to ensure product identification and compliance within their respective industry such as HIBCC (Healthcare), HAZMAT (Chemical), POSTNET (Postal) and AIAG (Automotive).

Reprinted with Permission from http://www.datamaxcorp.com