Historical Development and Background
Although barcodes seem to be such an integral part of our world today, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, it wasn’t until recent decades that this dream of creating shorter lines at the grocery store became a reality. The year was 1948. A distraught supermarket manager approached the dean at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia with a revolutionary idea. He was concerned about the length of his check out lines. At this time, the price of an item was printed on a sticker, which the cashier had to manually punch into an adding machine. The delays of these shoppers at the checkout stand were costing his store thousands of dollars in profits. The reaction of the dean was not quite what this manager had hoped. He quickly shrugged off the manager’s request and the manager sulked out of his office.
However, a junior postgraduate at the school, Bernard Silver, overheard the manager and was very intrigued by his request. He in turn mentioned this idea to his friend, Joe Woodland, who was known to be an inventor. Without any hesitation, Woodland decided to take on the challenge. He packed up his things and left graduate school for an apartment in Miami beach to solve this great supermarket dilemma.
One day, while sitting on the beach in Miami, Florida, Joe Woodland received the inspiration that led to the creation of the barcode. Woodland was drawing little doodles through the sand with his fingers. He was reflecting upon the lessons that he learned during Boy Scouts, particularly the lesson about deciphering Morse Code.
In his own words, Woodland recalls, “I remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I poked my four fingers into the sand and, for whatever reason- I didn’t know- I pulled my hand toward me and I had four lines. I said ‘Golly! Now I have four lines and they could be wide lines and narrow lines, instead of dots and dashes. Now I have a better chance of finding the doggone thing.’ Then, only seconds later, I took my four fingers- they were still in the sand- and I swept them round into a circle” (Weightman, 2015).
The original design for the barcode was not rectangular, but was instead a series of concentric circles that created a bull’s-eye that could be read from any angle. At this time it was known as a Classifying Apparatus and Method. The two biggest obstacles that they encountered were the printing of the actual code and the very bright light needed to read the barcode. For months they attempted a solution, but the technology proved to be just too complicated and the idea was left to gather dust for 20 years. The lasers and scanners required for such a system were just too advanced and expensive for the grocery stores to install.
Fast forward 20 years, to when this idea was once again at the forefront of technological advancement. The technology was slowly becoming more affordable and the ideas were slowly beginning to circulate once again. By this point Theodore Maiman had invented the laser, an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. They also found that the innovative technology of the rotating turret of ballpoint pens and an astronautical pen that could write upside down were just the solution to the printing dilemma. With these problems all resolved, these barcodes were integrated into the Kroger Kenwood Plaza store in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 3, 1972. They were a hit! However, in order for this idea to really take off, other stores besides one dinky supermarket in Ohio would have to also be on board. In essence, these barcodes had to become universal.
Researchers known as the Symbol Selection Committee decided to create certain specifications for the barcodes and they asked 14 companies to propose their ideas. These specifications included that it could be no larger than 1.5 square inches, it had to be readable from a foot and a half above the scanner, it had to be readable from any direction, it had to contain a maximum of 10 digits, it had to be able to be printed with the existing technology used for standard labels, and there had to be fewer than 1 in 20,000 undetected errors.
George Lauer was an engineer who worked at IBM and this list of specifications made its way into his hands. After months of work, he designed a rectangular barcode that could fit more code into less space. He also concluded that adding a mirror in the scanners would enable the barcode to be scanned no matter which direction it was oriented. His proposal was selected and his design was renamed the Universal Product Code.
One year later on June 26, 1974 in the small town of Troy, Ohio, the first item marked with the Universal Product Code was scanned. A 10-stick pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum was the first item scanned. It wasn’t a mere coincidence that this was the first item. Up until this point skeptics had been unsure if something so small could be scanned with this code. To the great delight of supermarket managers everywhere, it was a success. The waiting lines at the checkout stand dramatically decreased and stores gained thousands of dollars in revenue (Weightman, 2015).