Quality is important – even when it comes to product identification!

The question of product quality is raised everywhere and every day in all areas of our lives. Manufacturing companies usually have quality control systems in place for this purpose. These monitor compliance with certain specifications using suitable testing equipment, such as the dimensional accuracy of the product. To clearly identify the product, it often receives an optical marking in the form of a barcode, often even as a direct mark (DPM). This marking is used, for example, for controlling the equipment within the production process or for product traceability.

Practice almost always shows that the quality of this optical marking on the product receives little attention, in contrast to the quality of the product itself. Sometimes someone just looks at the barcode after it has been created. The barcode looks good. Then it must also be readable. But, and we must always be aware of this, we have neither a barcode decoder nor a quality assessment system for barcodes in mind. As a result, without suitable tools, we are unable to assess the readability or even the quality of the marking. We can only check a few parameters with our eyes, provided we know exactly what the rules governing the barcode’s structure are. For example, we need to check whether the required quiet zone, i.e., an area adjacent to the barcode, is free of interference. As already mentioned, such a simple check does not guarantee that the barcode is truly readable. In the best case scenario, a barcode reader is often used to verify the barcode’s readability.