Ajay Bhutani

In order to push up its business, Barcode India is all set to target the logistics market in India. “This initiative comes in the wake of increasing awareness among companies to manage their logistics better for increased business efficiency,” said Ajay Bhutani, CEO, Barcode India. In addition to this initiative, the company intends to leverage on the extensive use of barcode technology in the logistics and manufacturing industry. Apart from courier companies. the target focus would also be FMCGs and transportation companies, where barcode and related technology are extensively used throughout the entire supply chain.

With a turnover of Rs 4 crore, the company has an impressive roster of clients such as Honeywell International, Whirlpool, Hindustan Lever, Delphi, HP, Ford, Siemens Information Systems and ICI to name a few. Through this focus on logistics companies, Barcode India becomes an end-to-end data collection solution provider, crucial for the smooth functioning of the supply chain of any organisation. “We are also looking at expanding our operations overseas. Logistics and manufacturing will be the key focus verticals of Barcode India,” said Bhutani.

As an extension to barcode technology, the company has now branched out into areas like mobile computing and wireless data collection computing. “Mobile computers are adopted by companies who wish to have their data management function in place,” said Bhutani. He added that mobile computing is ideal for collecting, processing and communicating information whenever needed and at any possible location, thus significantly increasing the supply chain capabilities of the organisation. Another area that the company is targeting is wireless data collection, which uses Radio Frequency Data communication (RFD) waves as a medium of transmitting and receiving information. A barcode scanner is used to transmit the encoded information to a reader, which converts it to a usable form. Examples of barcode use include transportation companies that mark packages and shipment papers with barcodes, which is then scanned several times during the transportation to allow exact tracking of the package’s route and time of receiving it. Companies also use barcodes to uniquely identify all objects.

The barcode market, which emerged in the late 80s, has come a long way as far as data collection technology goes. Barcodes function on the basis of AIDC, (auto identification and data collection), which is a tool to auto-identify alphanumerical data in the form of black and white lines. The black line absorbs light, while the white one converts data into ASCII code. It is generally a 13-digit code, which can identify objects up to its final unique number.

Barcode initiatives are governed by a non-profit organisation, EAN India, which is dedicated to educating and promoting the use of international best practices in supply chain management related to identification of products, services and locations, and communication of information electronically within the Indian trade and industry.

“Barcodes are a foolproof method of capturing data economically. Internationally no goods or services can move without being tracked using barcodes and it is only a matter of time before the same happens in India,” said Bhutani. EAN India is interacting with government agencies to make it mandatory for companies to have all their products pre-barcoded. In order to encourage automatic tracking of goods, EAN India is also working with government agencies to bring down the customs duty rate on barcode equipment, which amounts to 40 percent of the company’s expenses. This will enhance the growth of the barcode market.