April 3, 1973: An ad hoc committee composed of grocery executives chooses the linear bar code with 11 digits and a 12th "check digit" as the present-day
Universal Product Code (UPC).
The Uniform Code Council (UCC), best known for its
Universal Product Code on retail and grocery products, has merged with RosettaNet, the high tech industry's leading e-business standards consortium.
"The industry has a tremendous history of working together on this going back to the
universal product code," Molpus said.
Meeting under the auspices of the Auto-ID Center -- an industry-funded research program based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with sister labs in Europe, Asia and Australia -- the executives considered the merits of the EPC as a successor to the nearly 30-year-old
universal product code (UPC).
The RSS is smaller than the
Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) yet provides more product information.
Thirty years ago, this industry used the technology of computers and lasers to create the common language of the
Universal Product Code (UPC).
On June 20, 1971, the GMA board endorsed several conclusions of the grocery industry's Ad Hoc Committee on Product Coding: that the grocery industry should adopt a
Universal Product Code (UPC); and that the code should consist of a 10-digit, all numeric mixed code, with each manufacturer assigned a five-digit identification code and the remaining five digits assigned by each manufacturer.
DON'T HOLD TOUR BREATH WAITING FOR THE
UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE CONCEPT TO BE applied outside the grocery industry, or to shipping cartons or unit loads within the grocery industry.
Recently; the
Universal Product Code (UPC) was thrown an all-day birthday blast and symposium at The Smithsonian Institution, with academic researchers and retail executives in attendance.
The Uniform Code Council (UCC) and FAN International jointly maintain the standards for the EAN-UCC system, which includes the UPC (
universal product code) and EAN-13 symbols that are widely used in retail outlets.
For a variety of reasons, the foodservice sector has not embraced the
Universal Product Code (UPC) and bar-code labeling.
The simplest of the three labels, the
Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) number, uses 12 digits to identify the manufacturer and the product.