Facility Operations,RFID

 

Barcode and RFID technologies are things most of us never think about, even though we’re likely to come in contact with them every day. If you buy something at a store or receive a piece of mail, chances are that these technologies played a key role in that experience.

 

The first patent for a barcode was issued over 60 years ago, nearly twice as long ago as when RFID technology was first developed. Uses of both are intended to streamline processes by virtually eliminating data entry errors, collect large amounts of data with little time and effort, and improve the way we manage and track information such as inventory. The barcodes and RFID tags, along with the means to read the information contained within each, are but one piece that plugs into a larger system. The value of that data is dependant on how a management or tracking system turns that into relevant information to help your business run in a more effective manner—which is the subject of a much broader topic. The intent of this article is to help you make a decision on what may be right for your operation by providing a brief overview of barcode and RFID technologies, what they are, how they work, advantages and disadvantages of each, and how they may be applied in a lab animal environment.

 

A barcode is an optical machine readable representation of data which exists in a number of different forms, depending on application and use. Most commonly, barcodes are linear or one dimensional (1D) and depict information horizontally, such that as more information is contained in the code, the larger the image becomes (Figure 1). Most people are familiar with 1D barcodes as they are commonly found on the labels of many consumer goods in the U.S. market today as part of “Unified Product Codes” (UPC). This is alphanumeric data that describes the product and lot numbers for tracking purposes in retail operations. A laser scanner reads the width and spacing of each line across the code to interpret alpha numeric characters. This is a “literal” interpretation of the data as each line and space in the barcode has a corresponding alphanumeric character that it represents.