Week 2

Patrick and Alessio were primarily focused on barcodes and their technical properties. While studying the EIGP114.00 guidelines they discovered that only Datamatrix ECC-200 and PDF117 are acceptable barcodes. After analyzing both options they decided to use the Datamatrix ECC-200: compared to PDF114 the Datamatrix is easier to handle, has a smaller size and can store more information. They also researched how information is stored on the barcode. Basically, the barcodes stores numbers and/or ASCII characters in a area containing 1 byte. Besides the normal characters Datamatrix ECC-200 also has an error handling called Reed-Solomon. It is an error correction method which is used in mobile communication like ATMs but also for data storage. Now they had all the information to determine the size of the barcode and chose the barcode with 22x22 fields, which has a size smaller than half an inch (1.27cm).

(scan me!)

Visiting Schurter Inc. in Santa Rosa

We arrived at the Schurter Building in Santa Rosa at 11:00 am. We were welcomed cordially: All our names were written on a big screen and Nathan Widger came to pick us up. We got an informative tour to see the offices and the warehouse, had a meeting in very comfortable chairs and lunch in a Mexican restaurant.