If a supply market or a manufacturing plant is not utilising barcode scanners, then it is obviously not of a high standard. These devices are, in simplest form, a handheld device which is required to read bar codes on objects to check their stock levels and journey through the supply chain.
With technology these days taking up such a major share of our every day routine and life, the use of irregular white and dark columns to identify different objects is not a huge surprise. What is amazing though is the manner in which barcode scanners have expanded into so many features of life.
For the common man, the most widespread place where barcode scanners and readers are seen is in large supermarkets and retail stores. The items that one purchases are scanned using a handheld device emitting a red light or passed under a senser that is fixed in a counter. Subsequently, the costs, the product code, the brand, etc display on the computer display. Within a few minutes, hundreds of items are passed under the scanner, and the queue in the supermarket is gone in no time. Not just in the retail industry, but barcode scanners are being used in many sectors.
The principal concept of a scanner is a light source, which is either a photodiode or a laser light, a lens and a sensor on which the light read from the bar codes generates an electrical impulse that is read through a sensor. With the progression of technology, the varying components have altered but the general concept of scanners has remained the same. The most recent addition to the innovation in barcode scanners and readers has been 2D and 3D readers.
The basic version of these scanners are available as a hand-held device which emit light from a photodiode, in the tip of a pen or handheld instrument. By moving across in a gentle consistent motion, the reflected light from the bars and the spaces is detected by the photodiode and creates a waveform. These pen type scanners and readers and qualified as the simplest of such devices.
The next development was in the form of laser scanners. These readers use laser light to transmit onto the barcodes and can detect it with a photodiode. The creation of a wave form is similar to the pen readers. With the advent of charged coupled devices as the modern technology, their use was seen in CCD scanners. They consist of hundreds of light sensors in a row and create a voltage pattern exactly corresponding to the bars and spaces of the barcode. The crucial dissimilarity is that these CCD readers capture light that is ambient to the bar-code without having a light source of its own, while the pen readers emit light from the instrument.
All these varieties of barcode scanners and readers have found use in numerous different industries and different magnitudes. They, scan barcodes placed in close proximity, as in supermarkets or can also read codes from several meters as in manufacturing units. They have significantly simplified all elements of the supply chain and allow for accurate and complete monitoring at all times.