Norman-Woodland-Obituary

Norman Joseph Woodland

Obituary

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Norman Joseph Woodland, the co-inventor of the bar code that labels nearly every product in stores and has boosted productivity in nearly every sector of commerce worldwide, has died. He was 91.

Woodland died Sunday in Edgewater, N.J., from the effects of Alzheimer's disease and complications of his advanced age, his daughter, Susan Woodland of New York, said Thursday.

Woodland and Bernard Silver were students at what is now called Drexel University in Philadelphia when Silver overheard a grocery-store executive asking an engineering school dean to channel students into research on how product information could be captured at checkout, Susan Woodland said.

Woodland notably had worked on the Manhattan Project, the U.S. military's atomic bomb development team. And having already earned a mechanical engineering degree, Woodland dropped out of graduate school to work on the bar code idea. He stole away to spend time with his grandfather in Miami to focus on developing a code that could symbolically capture details about an item, Susan Woodland.

The only code Woodland knew was the Morse Code he'd learned in the Boy Scouts, his daughter said. One day, he drew Morse dots and dashes as he sat on the beach and absent-mindedly left his fingers in the sand where they traced a series of parallel lines.

"It was a moment of inspiration. He said, 'instead of dots and dashes I can have thick and thin bars,'" Susan Woodland said.

Woodland and Silver submitted their patent in 1949 for a code patterned on concentric circles that looked like a bull's eye. The patent was issued in 1952, 60 years ago this fall. Silver died in 1963.

Woodland joined IBM in 1951 hoping to develop the bar code, but the technology wasn't accepted for more than two decades until lasers made it possible to read the code readily, the technology company said. In the early 1970s, Woodland moved to Raleigh to join a team at IBM's Research Triangle Park, N.C., facility. The team developed a bar-code-reading laser scanner system in response to demand from grocers' desires to automate and speed checkout while also cutting handling and inventory management costs.

IBM promoted a rectangular barcode that led to a standard for universal product code technology. The first product sold using a UPC scan was a 67-cent package of Wrigley's chewing gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in June 1974, according to GS1 US, the American affiliate of the global standard-setting UPC body.

Today, about 5 billion products are scanned and tracked worldwide every day, including sale items, airline boarding passes, military equipment, hospital patients, livestock, and highway toll customers, GS1 US says.

Woodland was born Sept 6, 1921, in Atlantic City, N.J.

Woodland and Microsoft founder Bill Gates were among those honored at the White House in 1992 for their achievements to technology, f our months after President George H.W. Bush appeared amazed at a demonstration of a grocery checkout machine.

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EMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press

Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio


Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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That 's was a great idea. Thank you.

Dear Woodland family,please be comforted by these words of encouragement from the Bible."Like a man whom his own mother keeps comforting,so I myself shall keep comforting you people."....isaiah 66:13
so sorry for your loss.....ms mebane

May your hearts soon be filled with wonderful memories of joyful times together as you celebrate a life well lived.

My condolences to the family. May you be
comforted by 1 PETER 5:10.

I worked with Joe on the UPC. He was brilliant, yet personable and delightful. The world needs many like Joe Woodland. May he rest in peace.

I am so sorry for your loss. I know losing a loved one is tough. I will keep you in my prayers. May you draw close to God.

Dear Woodland Family, Please accept my sincere condolences for the loss of your loved one. May you look forward to a time when this verse comes true "And He will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away".

Certainly was a pleasure having met Joe. His contribution to this world is remarkable and with this he will always be remembered

To the family of Norman Woodland - May God give you peace and comfort through his word and the Lord Jesus Christ during this time of sorrow, I know that he will be missed by many.