10/xx/09

By Courtney Kessler and Colleen Carow

Ohio University students wage war on poor quality bar codes

ATHENS, Ohio (Oct. xx, 2009) – Industrial technology students at Ohio University’s Fritz J. and

Dolores H. Russ College of Engineering and Technology are learning tactics to ease the

frustrations of cashiers and shoppers struggling to scan stubborn bar codes; distribution centers

misdirecting cartons due to poor quality codes; pharmaceutical companies being able to track

and trace goods; and a wide range of problems caused by poor quality bar codes thanks to a

recent equipment donation by Label Vision Systems, Inc of Peachtree City GA.

The university’s automatic identification lab, part of the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ College of

Engineering and Technology, recently was given of a pair of bar code quality systems by Label

Vision Systems, Inc., a manufacturer and seller of print quality inspection systems. The

INTEGRA 9505 verifiers grade the bar codes to the International Standards Organization (ISO)

Print Quality Standards. This assures the codes can be read by the various bar code scanners that

will be used. .

Students use the equipment as part of an automatic identification and data capture course, in

which they learn how product verification works. “This new hardware enables us to do more

than just talk about the theory. Students get to interact with the equipment, which also will help

with some of our applied research activities,” said Kevin Berisso, assistant professor of industrial

technology and director of the lab.

Alex Okolish, a senior studying industrial technology, sees the equipment as a way to bring the

theory out of the classroom and into the real world. “It increases the impact of the autoID

course,” he said. “Graduates of the IT program quickly become effective in the workforce

because we get a lot of hands on experience in school.”

After a product is placed on the station, a camera photographs the bar code, and then the

software highlights the errors, identifying the problems, making it easier to find the solutions.

The software then determines each bar code’s letter grade, from A to F. Those receiving a C or

lower are more likely to cause users to have to repeatedly scan the bar code before achieving a

successful decode, resulting in lowered efficiencies, reduced productivity and increased

frustration with the technology.

The new units grade not only linear bar codes, but two-dimensional bar codes, a capability the

university has been in need of. According to Berisso, this means that students can work with

anything from packs of gum to entire cases of products, including the newer bar codes being put

on fruit and pharmaceuticals for tracking the source and destination of the goods to meet the ever

increasing regulatory requirements from the FDA and Department of Home Land Security.

“We’ll be getting a level of feedback that is not available in most common software,” he said.

Ultimately, students learn how to solve errors. Whether it is before products are shipped to

stores, making unruly bar codes less of a problem for shoppers going it alone in self-checkout

lines, or preventing poor bar codes from stopping production lines, or even saving lives,

everyone wins.