Review of ISO standards Axicon European Reseller Conference

Standards that impact our business The application of bar codes and their print quality is well standardised throughout the world The retail industry is Axicon’s most important market sector and therefore the GS1 standard is the relevant application standard for most of our clients Underpinning the GS1 standard are the ISO symbology and print quality standards The requirement to conform to these standards becomes a contractual issue between the major retailers and their suppliers Charges for non-compliance drive the need for verification

Axicon European Reseller Conference Axicon representation Axicon are involved with a number of standards working groups and committees In the UK one of our verifier salesmen attends GS1 UK member group meetings These meetings have given us excellent links with the major retailers and large manufacturers as well as input to UK best practice documents John Pearce, who worked at GS1 UK for more than 20 years, represents Axicon on GSMP committees In addition to these areas, I also attend GS1 BTG meetings and ISO working group meetings

Axicon European Reseller Conference Other links with GS1 organizations Throughout the world Axicon has endeavored to develop close links with GS1 member organizations Many GS1 organizations have purchased Axicon verifiers and use them within the verification services that they offer to their members Axicon benefit both from the confidence in our verifiers within the GS1 community and also in the exposure this ultimately gives to the wider GS1 audience of their members Feedback from users within GS1 organizations has even led to enhancements to our products

Axicon European Reseller Conference ISO standard reviews Published ISO standards are reviewed on a regular basis The linear bar code print quality standard is now open for review and proposals are being made for certain changes to be made to the methodology and to the grading These changes are motivated by the wish to improve consistency of verifier measurements As a verifier manufacturer we will obviously be monitoring the progress of these proposed changes very closely

Axicon European Reseller Conference DPM Verification The original AIM Quality Guideline for Direct Part Marking was developed because the ISO 2D Print Quality standard was not suited to checking the quality of these marks Many (if not most) DPM marks, particularly those on metal substrates, will either fail to decode using the ISO reference decode algorithms or if they do decode then they will achieve a grade 0 (F) under the ISO/IEC grading system The AIM Quality Guideline is also published as an ISO Technical Report, which is a purely informative guideline and not a normative standard (referenced as ISO/IEC TR 29158)

Axicon European Reseller Conference DPM Verification There is a danger that the DPM verification method will be applied to 2D matrix symbols that simply fail to meet the requirements of ISO/IEC and this could be very misleading It is only appropriate to apply the DPM verification method if the application allows this method to be used A DPM grade will not be a good indication of scanning performance if standard imaging scanners are being used in the application DPM applications usually require specialised lighting to be used when scanning DPM symbols

Axicon European Reseller Conference DPM Verification Low contrast symbols

Axicon European Reseller Conference DPM Verification Increasing the exposure will often improve the grade

Axicon European Reseller Conference DPM Verification Adjusting the exposure of the image will not always improve the contrast difference between the background and the mark Some marks will only exhibit a reasonable contrast difference if the angle of the illumination is changed from the standard 45 degrees that is usually used when verifying codes on substrates that reflect light diffusely Both contrast and modulation are measured differently when applying the DPM method DPM verification also caters for the situation where individual modules are made of disconnected dots