I think this depends on your definition of "retail products". If you mean supermarket groceries, that may be. If you mean consumer electronics...doubtful.
-- William Sutton On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Brian Henning wrote: > On the other hand, the "bar code" most commonly found on retail products > is a UPC - Universal Product Code. These are administered by the GS1 > US (formerly the Uniform Code Council), and theoretically should be able > to be traced back to their registered owner. > > ~Brian > > William Sutton wrote: > > Having worked in a manufacturing firm (one of the largest in the world) > > as one of the people responsible for the manufacturing software, I'll wade > > in on this and give you the short and long answers. > > > > The short answer (unsurprisingly) is no. > > > > The long answer is somewhat more complicated. > > > > First thing to remember about a barcode: it isn't magic. It takes > > different patterns of rectangles to represent a single data character > > (e.g., 0-9A-Za-z). Add to that the usual use of a start/stop bit to flag > > the scanner that a data pattern has started/ended, and you're looking at a > > small amount of data in that barcode. > > > > This isn't really a concern since most of the time, the data represented > > by the barcode is printed at the bottom (e.g., 001-4323-4439-A), and is > > usually some sort of serial number. > > > > Different serial numbers are constructed differently based on a number of > > factors: > > - How the business that contracted the product wants it composed > > - How the manufacturer wants it composed > > - Uniqueness concerns > > - Lot/sublot/manufacture date desires > > > > Generally you'll see one of a number of strategies employed: > > - a block representing the lot/sublot > > - a block representing the date > > - a block representing the revision > > - a block representing a unique sequence > > > > Any of these can be fixed or variable width, and in just about any order > > desired. > > > > And that's for one manufacturer for one customer for one product. You > > can appreciate the potential complexity involved, particularly considering > > the fact that no one manufacturer is going to share this information with > > its competitors. > > > > Now, some of these numbers are standardized for one vendor across its > > products (think Lenovo ThinkPads) so that any repair work can follow a > > standardized serial number format and product repair process (think RMA). > > Nonetheless, that may necessitate a manufacturer code being added to the > > serial number so that one can know who worked on it... > > > > As a final aside...lots of information is tracked by the serial number. > > Depending on what is kept by whom, you can have as little information as > > the manufacturer or as much as every step of the manufacturing process > > including test results. > > > > HTH :) > > > > -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
