Historically, many companies invested in barcode technologies to comply with customer, industry or regulatory requirements. Once external compliance mandates were met, companies began to extend their barcode investments by pursuing internal process improvement initiatives. For many of these companies, barcoding became a viable source of competitive differentiation, improving margins and operational efficiency.
Now, the quest for business improvement is driving increased investment consideration for complementary AIDC technologies. These technologies are enabling a new breed of applications, and when used in tandem with barcode labels, many provide the data redundancy required to combat fraud and make data capture investments failsafe, all while enabling greater visibility and increasing the ability to leverage business intelligence.
Data recently gathered from end-users deploying AIDC technologies suggests that a significant number of companies are investing in multiple technologies to meet their unique application requirements and enhance their existing solutions. When asked, “What automatic identification/data collection solutions does your company use,” respondents suggested that they are complementing their use of barcode technology with a growing list of alternative technologies.
The questions are not which of these technologies will supersede barcodes, in what timeframe, or at what cost. The questions are where AIDC technologies are converging today, where they are likely to converge next, and what suppliers must do to capitalize on their convergence.