Traceability of good across the world is an uphill task. Without proper mechanism, goods are subject to counterfeiting. That’s a gap that barcoding technology is filling. However, little is known about the technology and its role in the supply chain. How is a barcode made? What information does it contain? What are its roles in agriculture, trade, transport and logistics and in healthcare?
To answer these questions we turn to a company that deals with barcoding technology and traceability. Barcodes came to existence in 1970s in United States to which the first barcode was scanned in 1974. In Kenya, barcode technology has been there since 1999.
Barcode is made up of bars and spaces which represents numbers. It captures the product’s country of origin, product description, number of products and a security feature as Pascal Kasimu, a Technical Service Manager at GS1 Kenya elaborates.
“A barcode is a thirteen-digit number. The first three digits is the country code which reflects the country to which the product comes from, (for Kenya it’s 616). The next set of four digits shows the product description. The next five numbers are the product code. The code can take a huge number of products using that code and finally the last number which is very key is a check-digit which is a security feature calculated from the other twelve set of numbers,” Kasimu says.
The technology ring-fences linear barcode which is used at the point of sale, a quick response code (QR code) which is mainly used by manufacturers for marketing. A digital link which resembles a QR code but it has a feature called resolvers which gives more information about the product which QR code doesn’t and can also be used in the point of sale.
“A linear barcode is used at the point of sale. A QR code is usually used as a marketing tool by manufacturers where you put a link on the QR code which directs to a website where you can gather more information. A digital link is a QR code which has different things, you can use it at the point of sale. It also has resolvers which is a link which gives you more information about a product which QR code doesn’t,” Kasimu explains.
Barcoding technology addresses counterfeiting of medicine in healthcare. Prescription of the wrong medicine could become the thing of the past as barcodes helps in tracing and identifying the genuine medicine from the manufacturer to the patient. Peter Otieno, CEO GS1 Kenya explains that in pharmaceuticals a data synchronization network is used to share information about medicine therefore eases traceability.
“In pharmaceuticals we use a data matrix which captures a lot of information including the type of medicine, the manufacturer and the country of origin. This information is shared globally in a system called Global Data Synchronization Network,” Otieno says.
Pascal Kasimu added that every patient needs to know the type of medicine he is administered. “Everyone needs to know what goes into your body if you are sick so traceability enables you to do so all the way from the source. Electronic data interchange enables traceability to work,” he says.
Shoplifting runs rampant in retail stores which brings loses to retailers. Peter Otieno says that barcodes enable retailers to detect if shoplifting has occurred and which is difficult to trace manually. Managing stock is also an issue which barcodes solves. “It all began at the retail. There are many suppliers and supplying several products which comes in different sizes and on daily basis. This becomes problematic to manage. You might also have an arrangement with the suppliers that you will pay them once goods are sold then it becomes difficult to know whose goods have been sold,” he says.
He continues, “Some people don’t have ethics. They shoplift and you might not know. This system (barcodes) was created to identify products uniquely even if they look a-like. The products are simply identified by scanning. It helps in managing stock and tracing products.”
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