An GS1 barcode: what is it?

A non-profit organization called GS1 (Global Standards 1) collaborates closely with many businesses to establish standards for the data that should be stored in barcodes. By doing this, it is made possible for organizations worldwide to obtain valuable data on a product upon scanning its barcode.

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Generally speaking, a barcode is only a special identification that enables computer systems to monitor actual physical items. Any information may really be encoded into a barcode, but it won’t be very useful unless the organization reading the barcode knows how the data was encoded and can decode it.

That’s the issue that a GS1 barcode addresses. Organizations comprehend how to extract data and agree on the best way to encode information.

Why are barcodes GS1 significant?

Let’s first examine the lifespan of a product to better grasp the significance of GS1 barcodes:

Manufacturers obtain raw ingredients and produce goods.

First courier: gathers the goods and transports it to a distributor

Distributor: sells the item to a retailer again

Courier 2: gathers the merchandise and transports it to a store.

The retailer displays the item on a shelf so that you may buy it.

The concept described above is known as a supply chain. Every stage is frequently a distinct organization with a different computer system, sometimes located abroad and speaking a different language. The product needs to be recognizable to computer systems in order for every organization to be able to identify and track the same item; this is where barcodes come in.

Let’s now assume that the product is an asthma inhaler with a 12-month expiration date from the date of production. Without a GS1 barcode, every company would have to visually inspect every product in its warehouses on a regular basis to make sure it hadn’t expired before shipment.

But if a GS1 barcode has an expiration date incorporated in it, computer systems at every stop along the way may automatically identify an expired product and remove it from the supply chain, guaranteeing it never reaches a patient.

Now assume that six months after creating an asthma inhaler, the producer finds out that a key component of the batch was tainted. Each product has a globally unique identification (GS1 barcode), which allows the manufacturer to initiate a recall for that product anywhere in the supply chain by just giving the barcode number. once more lowering the danger to customers.

GS1 barcodes are used by who?

Shop

Nearly every item you buy from a store has a GS1 barcode, sometimes called a UPC. In order to avoid having to attach price labels to each item, the shop scans the product at the checkout to retrieve its price. A notice to buy more of the product is automatically triggered when the product is sold out of stock. This guarantees that stores never run out of inventory without having to hand count every item.

Medical Care

Hospitals take in a steady stream of damaged people, fix them, and release them back into society. They are like people factories, working around the clock. They employ a mix of people (medical professionals), tools (medical technologies), and medications (pharmaceuticals) to do this. In contrast to industries, hospitals are unable to predict in advance how many patients they would need to treat on a daily basis.

Errors are inevitable because to long hours and an unpredictable workload, yet at a hospital, an error might be fatal. Governments all throughout the world thus imposed regulations on the usage of GS1 barcodes. Patients receive a barcoded bracelet with personal information on it when they check into a hospital. The patient’s wristband is scanned to validate their identification before any medicine is given, and the drug is also scanned to make sure the patient is supposed to get it. aiding in the decrease of mistake risk.