Light “We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors” is a quote attri buted to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, but it also applies to the inventor of the barcode, Norman Joseph Woodland. The mechanical engineer had been a boy scout in his youth, which gave him the opportunity to learn Morse code. This served as the inspiration for him to develop his barcode system, multiple black stripes of various widths arranged in parallel to one another, cre ating unique lined patterns. A laser-based device could then optically scan the barcode to translate its content into machine- readable information and pass it on to a computer. Woodland’s invention has made the process of data collection and manage ment incredibly efficient and virtually error free. Light is also used in the pick-by-light process employed by Gebrüder Weiss for its custo- mer Nespresso, for example. Here, signaling lights indicate which items need to be taken from a shelf. Further equipment is not requi- red, which makes the pickers’ job that much easier both physically and mentally.
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