“Before the barcode, everything was longer and subject to human error”, explains Xavier Barras, director of operations at GS1 France, the organization responsible for the barcode standard. Shopping at the store meant huge queues, as the cashier had to type in the price of each product passing in front of him, empty shelves as stock needs were not properly detected, and again regular closings for inventory .
13 digits to name a product
But on June 26, 1974, at 8:01 am in Troy, a city of 17,000 inhabitants in Ohio, an imperceptible “beep” marked the beginning of a new era. A package of Wrigley’s brand chewing gum is scanned for the first time in cash register history. “In concrete terms, the system is simple: each product is identified by a globally unique 13-digit code. It’s a bit like his identity card number on a global scale.summarizes Xavier Barras.
Each digit is represented by seven bars that the laser can read. Once the code has been captured, the laser scanner emits a “beep”, indicating to the cashier that the product has been successfully scanned. The figures are transmitted to the cash register software. “This is responsible for linking each series of 13 digits to the product and the price that corresponds to it”explains Xavier Barras.
“A product that goes to checkout has always followed these same steps for fifty years, and it has not changed”, enthuses the specialist. The revolution is that it is now enough for a human to assign the price of a product once in software, generally from the headquarters of a brand, so that all the checkouts in its stores automatically assign the price. good price to the scanned product.
A code born in the sand
“Legend has it that the first barcode was born on a Miami beach”, says Xavier Barras. While studying mechanical engineering, Norman Woodland slipped his fingers in the sand and then had an idea: to use Morse code to allow a machine to read numbers. He would have seen the first barcode in the world. The young Woodland patented the idea in 1952. Unfortunately, the laser, necessary for reading the numbers, was missing, so the idea did not take off.
Seventeen years later, while in-store references are flourishing, a group of food manufacturers, the National Association of Food Chains (NAFC), decided to look for a technical means to meet a growing need: to reduce queues at checkouts. They create an association (the current GS1) which puts several companies in competition to propose the best system.
How to make a machine read
“The curved shapes of the numbers do not allow easy laser reading”, explains Xavier Barras. George Laurer, an IBM engineer, picks up Woodland’s idea. He had first proposed a model in the form of concentric circles, so that the code could be read in any position. “But this form became indecipherable when the impression smudged”, specifies the chief operator. George Laurer rejects the circular form to prefer vertical bars.
At the same time, research into lasers made them into widespread objects. “We first used pens that we ran over the barcode. If the light was absorbed, the scanner understood that it was encountering black, if the light was reflected, it was facing white”says Xavier Barras.
The barcode crosses borders
On April 3, 1973, 50 years ago, the association selected IBM and its twelve-digit system designed by George Laurer. It is accompanied by an identification system “UPC” (for “universal product code”), a sort of alphabet, which is becoming the standard for all American manufacturers. The first digit indicates a fixed or variable weight product, the next five identify its manufacturer, the next five identify the product itself and the last is a check digit, to verify that the previous eleven have been read correctly.
This twelve-digit system underwent an evolution in 1976, when the barcode crossed borders. “A thirteenth digit was necessary to specify the country, adds Xavier Barras. For example, if a barcode starts with a number between 30 and 37, it is a company that registered the code in France. »
This part of the code, at the top of the series, indicates the place where the product was registered with GS1, the international organization managing barcodes. This is not necessarily the country of manufacture, although this is most often the case.
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The QR Code should become widespread in 2027
The QR Code should replace traditional barcodes in France in 2027. This is the objective set by GS1, the organization responsible for managing barcodes. It will make it possible to respond to the growing demand for information from consumers. This checkerboard-shaped code, designed in Japan in 1994, provides more data, such as expiration date and batch number. The consumer can also benefit from more detailed information, such as nutritional value. The change will lead 57,000 companies, members of GS1, to change the system.