When a distraught supermarket manager complained to the dean of Drexel Institute of Technology about slow-moving checkout queues costing him profits, he pleaded for a technology that could speed up the lines. However, the professor shrugged him off.
Overhearing the conversation, Bernard “Bob” Silver, a junior postgraduate student, was intrigued by the manager’s plea. He shared the story with Joe Woodland, who had already graduated from Drexel in 1947 and was known as an inventor.
Confident that he could come up with a solution, Woodland left Drexel during the winter of 1948 and moved to an apartment in Miami Beach to focus on the problem.
While pondering about the issue on the beach, he began contemplating the dots and dashes used in Morse code. As he simply poked his fingers into the sand and dragged them toward himself, he noticed the marks left behind. Instead of dots and dashes, there were wide and narrow lines. Intrigued by these lines, he drew a circle around the lines.
It was his knowledge of Morse code, learned during his time in the Boy Scouts, that sparked the idea.
Joe Woodland later recalled:
I remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I poked my four fingers into the sand and, for whatever reason—I didn’t know—I pulled my hand toward me and I had four lines. I said ‘Golly! Now I have four lines and they could be wide lines and narrow lines, instead of dots and dashes. Now I have a better chance of finding the doggone thing.’ Then, only seconds later, I took my four fingers—they were still in the sand—and I swept them round into a circle.
He and Silver applied for a patent in 1949, which was granted in 1952. They started building a crude prototype at Woodland’s home, using a 500-watt incandescent light and an oscilloscope to “read the code.”
However, due to a lack of interest from companies in their invention and the need for a bright light to “read” the white and black barcode, their prototype had limited success. It was truly ahead of its time.
How Invention of Laser Changed the future of Barcode Reading
But everything changed when a research scientist from Hughes Aircraft Company developed the laser, which could easily decode the barcode’s pattern.
The laser was capable of emitting an “atomic radio light brighter than the center of the sun.” Maiman, the scientist, coined the term “laser” for reporters — an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Maiman explained to reporters that this tiny beam was hot and sharp enough to cut through materials, and if it were beamed from Los Angeles to San Francisco, it would spread by only about 100 feet. Although reporters asked whether it could be used as a weapon, he replied that it was not the intention.
Nevertheless, the reporters ran with the sensational headline: “LA Man Discovers Science Fiction Death Ray.” This dramatic title quickly became a popular theme in newspapers.
While Maiman believed the laser could have many applications, he never imagined it would one day be used for something as practical as a supermarket checkout scanner.
Big Supermarket Plea for Optical Scanner
In 1966, the Kroger Company—one of North America’s largest supermarket chains—published a booklet that ended with a hopeful yet frustrated plea for innovation. “Just dreaming a little…,” it mused, “could an optical scanner read the price and total the sale? Faster, more efficient service is desperately needed. We ask for your help.”
Kroger, despite its size and influence, lacked the technical expertise to bring this vision to life. So, they began searching for a partner who could bridge the gap between retail needs and cutting-edge technology.
Kartrak - World’s First official Barcode System
Not long after, in 1967, the railroad industry introduced Kartrak, the world’s first official barcode system. Kartrak barcodes were designed to automatically identify rail cars as they passed by scanners, using a pattern of colorful lines that resembled modern art more than the barcodes we recognize today.
Why didn't Kartrak work?
KarTrak faced significant challenges from the start. Despite being the first barcode system to be officially adopted by an industry, it wasn’t as accurate as expected and was eventually discontinued in the 1970s.
Between 1967 and 1977, the railroad industry invested $150 million in KarTrak, and up to 95% of rail cars were barcoded. However, the system required extensive maintenance, and up to 20% of the cars were not read correctly.
Additionally, ACI (Automatic Car Identification) lacked a centralized network, even within the railroad companies, which meant that the information collected by wayside scanners was printed out with no effective way to search through it other than manually sorting through piles of paperwork.
As error rates grew, clerical staff became increasingly frustrated, and the ARR eventually decided to discontinue the requirement for KarTrak labels on rail cars. Ultimately, the system was abandoned due to its inefficiency, and the once colorful KarTrak symbol is now largely forgotten.
Around the same time Kartrak was introduced, the grocery industry began taking steps that would eventually lead to the barcode we use today. In the late 1960s, stores launched barcode pilot projects, experimenting with a variety of barcode designs.
A small research team at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was working on several promising new projects. One idea that seemed promising to them involved a system where a scanner would automatically identify each product and generate a bill. (RCA acquired the patent from Joseph Woodland and Bob Silver.)
Eventually, they came across the Woodland and Silver patent. It wasn’t the original rectangular barcode Woodland had first sketched in the sand at Miami Beach—instead, it featured a “bullseye” design made of concentric circles.
After experimenting with both designs, Woodland and Silver realized the bullseye was the smarter choice because scanners could read it from any direction without missing a beat.
Although the bullseye barcode could be scanned from any angle, any error in the code would render the entire system inefficient.
All these developments were overseen by RCA, which put the bullseye barcode to the test at Kroger’s Kenwood Plaza store in Cincinnati. To everyone’s surprise, it increased sales.
However, other stores adopted symbols created by different companies. For instance, Carecogn introduced a sun-shaped symbol, while Litton developed a fan-shaped design. It didn’t take long for the grocery industry to recognize that this period of unregulated experimentation couldn’t continue.
For barcodes to successfully automate inventory and checkout, the entire industry would need to standardize on a single symbol. Without uniformity, the system would become too complicated and costly to implement.
The Ad-Hoc Committee for Universal Product Identification Code (UPIC) was tasked with creating a standard barcode, the Universal Product Code (UPC), which would be used on all goods sold in supermarkets and printed by manufacturers.
But the vision was daunting. Cardboard manufacturers resisted, fearing the barcode would damage products, while canners thought it would be too tedious to apply barcodes to cans.
Many companies submitted their systems to the committee, but RCA emerged as the only real contender.
At the last minute, IBM made a bid without a prototype. It was believed that they would employ Joe Woodland. Although he was involved in the submission, the responsibility for creating the version of the universal barcode fell to George Laurer. Laurer was confident that he had no preconceived biases about the barcode’s appearance.
Here’s the list of specifications determined by the committee:
- Size Limit: No larger than 1.5 square inches (small and neat).
- Printing Compatibility: Must work with existing label-printing technology to reduce costs.
- Digits: Only 10 digits required (based on calculations).
- Scanning Requirements:
- Scannable from any direction.
- Readable at high speed.
- Accuracy: Fewer than 1 in 20,000 undetected errors.
Despite initial skepticism, Laurer chose the rectangular code. IBM tested the barcode with a prototype scanner they had built.
“There were many skeptics at IBM,” Laurer recalled, “not the least of whom was [my boss] B.O. Evans. However, after a flawless demonstration for Mr. Evans, we had our ace softball pitcher toss bean bag ashtrays with symbols on the bottom as fast as he could over the scanner. When each one was read correctly, Mr. Evans was convinced.”
Throughout the process, RCA and IBM were the leading contenders, and in a somewhat ironic turn of events, Joseph Woodland — the “father of the barcode” and creator of the bull’s-eye symbol — supported the IBM design over his own invention.
As the decision neared, RCA, fearing their symbol wouldn’t be chosen, began to exert pressure on the committee, even threatening to withdraw from the barcode industry entirely if their bull’s-eye design wasn’t selected as the standard.
The selection committee faced immense pressure to choose RCA’s system, but after consulting with MIT scientists, they made their final decision.
Alan Haberman, the committee chair, asked the team to confirm their confidence in the chosen symbol. With 90% certainty, Laurer’s rectangular code emerged as the winner.
Like many inventions, the UPC wasn’t an immediate hit. It gained traction after Kmart became the first to test it. Today, the UPC is globally used by supermarkets and other industries, becoming prominent in the 1980s and essential for items requiring instant identification.
How Does Barcode Work?
A barcode works by using a scanner that reads the code with a laser beam as its light source. The black bars of the barcode absorb light, while the white spaces reflect it back to the scanner. The scanner measures the intensity of the reflected light, and the unique pattern of light and dark is interpreted by a computer. This allows the system to retrieve pricing information and update the stock database to reflect the sale.
Benefits of Barcodes (Apart from Faster Checkout)
- Biggest Impact: Provides real-time sales data, revealing which products succeed or fail.
- Market Research Revolution: Tracks consumer preferences with precision.
- Efficiency Boost: Optimizes production and inventory management.
Barcode scanners are now handy, gun-sized devices capable of identifying everything from products to newborn babies.
Fact: The barcodes you scan at a grocery store today are essentially the same as the ones that were scanned back in the 1970s.
On June 26, 1974, the first item marked with the Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned at the checkout of Troy’s Marsh Supermarket.
The night before the big launch, a team from Marsh Supermarket worked late, tagging hundreds of items with barcodes while National Cash Register installed the new scanners and computers.
The first official shopper was Clyde Dawson, Marsh’s head of research and development. The first cashier to scan an item was Sharon Buchanan. Legend has it that Dawson reached into his shopping basket and pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. But it wasn’t random—Dawson later explained that he chose the gum on purpose.
There had been doubts about whether a barcode could be printed small enough to fit on a tiny pack of gum. Wrigley solved the problem—and in doing so, earned a permanent place in American retail history.
One of the Juicy Fruit packets from the supermarket is now held by the Smithsonian Museum.
In 1973, IBM was one of the first vendors to offer a complete point-of-sale automation kit, now known as a POS system. The IBM 3660 Supermarket System included a POS terminal, a barcode scanner, and a merchant terminal connected to a server.
There are few objects more instantly recognizable than the barcode. They’re everywhere — with over 6 billion scanned daily. From the books we purchase to the packages delivered to our doorsteps, barcodes have become such a ubiquitous part of our lives that it’s almost impossible to picture them any other way.
What Marketers Can Learn from the Invention of the Barcode
Don’t Accept Challenges as Normal: When the manager, who had faced a loss of profits at his supermarket, didn’t accept this as the normal way of doing business like everyone else, he went a step further by pleading with the dean to reduce the duration of customers’ wait times at checkout counters.
“If you don’t like how things are, change it. You’re not a tree.”
— Jim Rohn
Don’t Shrug It Off: As a product or marketing lead, if there’s no immediate solution for a common problem, don’t dismiss it. Even if you can’t invest your resources into solving it right away, you can still borrow knowledge from other industries if it’s available. In the case of barcodes, nobody could have predicted how laser technology would revolutionize supermarket checkout operations. Even Maiman said, “I did not foresee the supermarket check-out scanner or the printer.”
So, invest your resources wisely to find solutions from other industries.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
— Marcel Proust
Don’t Have Preconceived Notions: George Laurer had an advantage over other competitors because he didn’t have preconceived notions about barcodes. Even though his boss thought it would be something similar to Woodland’s Circle Code, he went ahead with rectangular codes and convinced everyone to try it. Upon seeing the great demonstration of how it worked, his boss was convinced.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.”
— Daniel J. Boorstin
Still Go Ahead Even If You Have Skepticism: George Laurer was super confident and went ahead with the specifications given by the Ad Hoc Committee. Although there were many skeptics at IBM, he still convinced everyone. Even though the chances are slim, sometimes you need to go ahead with your instincts.
“Skepticism will always be part of the room—just make sure it doesn’t get the final say.”
Carry Out a Clear Demonstration of Your Product: When Dawson picked a shopping basket and pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum, it wasn’t randomly selected. He did it on purpose to show that even a small item like chewing gum could have its barcode scanned properly. Clear demonstrations of your products can serve as a word-of-mouth marketing tool. Remember the PPSS Group demonstrations of the Stab Vest at the International Security Expo (Video Link). And let’s not forget Steve Jobs.
“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.”
— Steve Jobs
Invest in Sustaining Innovations: Sustaining innovations are improvements to existing products or services that enhance their performance and keep them competitive in the market. These innovations usually build upon current technologies and processes rather than creating entirely new categories.
- IBM launched the world’s first point-of-sale automation kit, which includes a POS terminal, barcode scanner, and merchant terminal connected to a server. Before this, supermarkets and retailers used manual checkout systems that were slow and inefficient. IBM improved this existing process by introducing an automated system.
Most innovations are not breakthroughs. They’re better versions of what already exists.”
— Clayton M. Christensen