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UPC / EAN
Common Product Code
The Product Bar Code
The use of bar codes on products came in to existence due to two key factors.
The
creation
of
computers and the demand on major retailers to find a solution to the ever-growing
drain of
time
and
expense caused by large line ups.
The movement of establishing a common product code occured
in America in the 1950s.
In 1967,
The Kroger Company, a major large scale chain retailer in the U.S., developed
the bar code-oriented entry system and subsequently attached a barcode to each
product
and enter
the product data automatically
into computer.
The Introduction of UPC and EAN
In order to spread the barcode all over the United States, a nationally-standardized
rule had to be created in order to assign a number to each product. In 1973, with the help of the
American Food Chain Association, the Universal Product Code (UPC)
was created.
Europe later established the European Article Number (EAN) in 1977,
the common product code of European countries.The member countries of EAN
are listed in "flag" page.
Going together with the improvement of functionality of the computer,
spread of the common product code resulted to
the introduction of the so-called POS,
not only for sales management at the register,
but for inventory control, stock management, sales prediction, etc.;
and it has grown into an indispensable for management of large shops.
Relation of Common Product Code
and the Barcode
Common Product Codes, such as UPC and EAN, are a form of barcodes. Of course,
barcodes are not always used to represent products and as such can come in
many different forms and using many different barcode standards.
It is also worth noting that a product code often
refers to the actual digits used to represent a product while it's symbol representation
is the barcode itself.
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