BAR CODES: -

Automatic identification systems, also known as bar-coders, identify products using machine-readable binary codes. Bar-code technology allows faster, more accurate data entry, better document tracking, reduced inventory costs, and increased sales. Bar codes are the printed patterns of lines, spaces, and numerals you see today on most packaged products. Bar codes are as useful to the manufacturer as they are to the retailer. The purpose is the same: to keep an accurate, current count of inventory items as they move past a scanner. In manufacturing, employees completing a step in the production process would typically pass the light wand over the bar codes that represent their employee number, the production process number, product (piece) number, and the quantity. This replaces manual inventory record keeping as well as manual employee timekeeping. Many companies begin using bar coding for inventory, then find applications to replace time clocks, record-billing time, manage assets, and other accounting activities.