A Standards Update - AIDC Bar Code Standards
Welcome to this edition of a regular column about standards in
the Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) industry. This column will
be updated regularly to keep you current on news of standards and their impact
on the industry.
In the coming months, we will try to educate you on the various
technologies covered under the AIDC umbrella as well as bring news of the
standardization process and its progress. If you have news about standards that
you want to share, or questions you want to ask, send them to steve@hightechaid.com
and we will try to incorporate them into the next column.
In last month's issue of this column, we started looking at the
various AIDC technologies and who is involved in standardization in these
technologies. In this month's column we will start to delve a bit deeper into
each technology and the standardization work that is being done.
Last month I explained the difference between a technology
standard and an application standard. In most cases the technology standard
comes first and an application standard is built round the technology. Many
people create application standards, but usually there is only one, or maybe
two, sources for the technology standards.
In the barcode arena, AIM has long been the traditional source
of the technology standards. Currently AIM offers technology standards for the
following barcode symbologies.
|
Linear |
Matrix |
Stacked/Packet |
|
Code 39 |
MaxiCode |
PDF 417 |
|
Interleaved 2 of 5 |
Data Matrix |
Micro PDF 417 |
|
Codabar |
Aztec Code |
EAN.UCC Composite |
|
Code 128 |
Code One |
SuperCode |
|
Code 93 |
QR Code |
Code 16K |
|
Reduced Space Symbology |
Aztec Mesas |
Code 49 |
|
Code 93i |
Dot Code |
Codablock |
|
Channel Code |
|
|
|
Telepen |
|
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Symbology standards are also available from other organizations.
For example, the U.P.C. and EAN symbologies are available from UCC and EAN. Most
proprietary symbologies are only available from their respective inventors.
A symbology specifications give all the details necessary to
print or scan a barcode. The documents range from 8 pages to 120 pages, so you
can see that there is of information needed to create a barcode.
Looking at a standard from a very simplistic level, it must
contain:
- A definition of the width of the bars and the spaces.
- A method to define each character that is encodable (whether numeric only
or full ASCII).
- The start and stop characters
- Any check character support built in
- Any free space needed around the symbology to allow for a clean decode
From these basic definitions, it then gets to be complicated as
error correction becomes a factor and as we start to talk about non-linear
symbologies. With some of the two dimensional symbologies allowing the
encodation of several kilobytes of data, on a symbol that may be several square
inches in size, it become important to fully define the "rules" for a
symbology.
Once you have the basic technology standard written then it
becomes available for everyone to use and interpret for their particular use. An
example of the use of the barcode technology standards would be the use by the
Health Industry Business Communications Council (HIBCC) ( http://www.hibcc.org/barcodel.htm)
of various barcode symbologies in the health care industry. HIBCC have written a
series of application standards that use several symbologies to define how bar
code technology is used in healthcare. Each of these application standards
refers to a technology standard for the rules on creating the symbology, but
they add the rules for the data side of the barcode.
So, if you are looking for a standard for barcode technology,
then you need to look in two places, the symbology standard first and then the
application standard from the industry association. From the American Production
& Inventory Control Society Inc. (APICS) to the Warehousing Education and
Research Council (WERC) there will be an association for your industry that has
created an application standard.
Next month we will look at card technology standards.
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