A Day at the Beach and Suddenly the Barcode is Everywhere
Monday July 1, 2019
Norman Joseph Woodland is said to have sketched out the idea for the first barcode in sand, while sitting on a Florida beach in 1949, sparking a transformation of the way entire industries track their products, their processes and their inventory.
It just goes to show you that the concept of “a day at the beach” is lost on some people.
Still, thanks to Woodland, his co-inventor Bernard Silver, and a forward-thinking supermarket executive who drove the evolution of Woodland’s idea into the pattern of stripes found on everything from hospital patients’ i.d. bracelets to airline boarding passes, people …