Black, White and Silver

Insight on the News, Nov 8, 1999 by William Glanz

The Smithsonian is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the universal product code with an exhibit detailing its universal application: 5 billion items worldwide are scanned daily.

The universal product code, or UPC, is more than a series of 59 black-and-white bars. It is a symbol of Joseph Woodland's accomplishments. Twenty-five years after Woodland and two colleagues -- Bernard Silver and George Laurer -- at IBM Corp. completed work on bar-code technology, they are witnesses to a Smithsonian Institution exhibit dedicated to their invention.

The UPC's black-and-white bars may not have the color other exhibits have, but "Behind the Lines: The Universal Product Code at 25" demonstrates the everyday significance of technological advancements. That significance started with a pack of chewing gum -- the first item ever scanned for sale. A man named Clyde Dawson bought a 10-pack of Wrigley's at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974.

Byron Allumbaugh, former president of Ralph's Grocery Co., the Los Angeles-based grocer that was one of the first chains to introduce scanners, knew bar codes were more than a technological fad. Grocers were searching for a method that would help them track inventory efficiently. "We were definitely on the cutting edge and we knew it," says Allumbaugh.

While grocers expected scanners to give them better data on sales, they didn't expect the consumer backlash that occurred. Then-TV talk-show host Phil Donahue led a protest against the scanners on his show in 1974 because he thought grocers simply wanted to remove price tags from products to confuse consumers. "We had to convince customers that it was more accurate than punching keys," says Allumbaugh.

Today, consumers have become blase about scanners. An estimated 5 billion items are scanned in grocery and retail stores around the world daily and the UPC has become just that -- universal.

This still surprises Woodland, now 78 and retired, but not because he doubts the usefulness of the technology. "It was a great invention," says Woodland. "But I'm a little overwhelmed when I see how ubiquitous the application has become."

He began working on bar codes in 1949 after a friend overheard a grocer talking about the need for a better way to record sales and track inventory. By 1952, Woodland and Silver had a patent on a bar-code reader, but the grocery industry didn't embrace the invention because it was too bulky -- about the size of a desk. The real problem, however, was that lasers hadn't been invented.

Woodland continued to work on the device. In 1973, a group called the Ad Hoc Committee on a Uniform Grocery Product Code -- 10 persons representing food and product manufacturers -- picked IBM's bar-code design and scanning technology over proposals from six other research teams as the method grocers would use to automate sales.

Woodland still likes to mention to unsuspecting clerks while he's in a checkout line that he helped develop the technology. "I'll say, `How do you like this scanning thing?' Sometimes a clerk will pick up on it and say, `You invented it?' I just want to see their reaction to it, and usually it's favorable."

Woodland received the National Medal of Technology for developing the scanner from President Bush. "It was my career," he says. "The bar code was always on my mind."

The exhibit, at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, will run through March 2000.