When you run a business, one of the things that you need to do is to keep track of your assets and your inventory. In order to do this, you will need to have an effective tracking system and tracking tags that can help make the job easier and more accurate. Some of the things you can use are tracking tags like as barcodes and UID plates.
While both can effectively help you keep track of your inventory and assets, you should choose the kind of tag that will fit the items that you to mark. How do you choose which tag is best for your tracking needs? Should you choose barcodes or are UID plates the best tags for your business?
In order to help you decide which one is ideal for your tagging and tracking needs, here are some things that you should know about each type of tag:
Barcodes – these are machine readable tags that carry data on them with the use of bars and spaces. There are quite a few types of barcodes you can choose from and these include such choices like Code 39, Code 128 and Interleaved 2 of 5. The differences in each of these codes can be found in the way each one is encoded. How much data that can be stored in these codes as well as the type of data you can add to these also differ.
These tracking tags or codes are often used for point of sale, inventory, work in progress and quality control purposes. These can also be used to keep track of documents, for secured access and for attendance or time tracking needs. This means that such tags are very versatile and can be used for a wide variety of purposes.
UID plates – short for Unique Identification, UID plates are government mandated tags used to identify or track items and this is done with the use of a 2D data matrix code. These codes are made to help people keep track of specific items or components through its entire life cycle, hence the need for durable tags or plates for this.
These can be made using aluminum foil, metal plates, paper and other similar materials. These tags carry more information on them when compared with standard barcodes. This means that you can store more information on a smaller space with the use of these tags as compared with standard barcodes.