David Jarrett Collins

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David Jarrett Collins (February 11, 1936 - ) is an inventor and businessman whose career has been focused on bringing barcode technology into the mainstream.

David Jarrett Collins

Background

David Jarrett Collins was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, son of Walton Robert and Margaret (Missett) Collins. He attended La Salle College High School, graduating in 1953, and graduated from Villanova University in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. He was a Research Fellow at the College of Aeronautics in Cranfield, England in 1958. He also received his Master of Science in Industrial Management from MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1959. He additionally studied Mathematical Economics at Boston College.

Career

While studying Civil Engineering at Villanova University, Collins took a summer job with the Pennsylvania Railroad where he noticed that the railroad’s punch-card system for daily tracking of rolling stock was prone to errors, and he recognized the need for automatic identification. Immediately after graduation from MIT, Collins began working for Sylvania Electric Products (Sylvania) in Waltham, MA. He worked for Sylvania from 1959 - 1968 and rose to Vice President, Sylvania Rail Data Corporation. While at Sylvania, he managed the development of the first commercial linear barcode: KarTrak, for Automatic Car Identification (ACI) as it became known in the industry. KarTrak used blue and red reflective stripes, as well as black and white stripes attached to the side of the cars, encoding a six-digit company identifier and a four-digit car number. White light reflected off the colored stripes and was read by photomultiplier vacuum tubes and decoded by digital logic at the scanner. Instead of aiming steady white light beams at the passing trains - which was usually a hit or miss proposition, Collins designed a moving light source with rotating mirrors, which could consistently pick up the patterns from the labels.

In 1961, this first barcode scanner was installed and tested by Sylvania on the Boston & Maine Railroad, and in 1966 the Association of American Railroads (AAR) sponsored a series of test in Spruce Creek, PA, a high-volume passing point on the Pennsylvania Railroad. By 1967, the AAR board of directors recommended that an optically coded color-responsive label be adopted throughout North America, and be required as a permanent marking technique on every freight car and they adopted this barcode standard of tracking across the entire North American rail and sea container industry. That same year, Collins approached management seeking funding to develop a black and white label scanning version that could be used in multiple industries. They declined, and Collins left Sylvania to start Computer Identics Corporation with a goal of creating a laser scanner capable of reading small barcode labels as seen today. He served as President and CEO from 1968 - 1987 and was succeeded by Frank J. Wezniak.

KarTrak scanner installation in Midland, MI

In 1970, Computer Identics sold the world’s first commercial laser scanner to General Motors, who used it to identify and record car components on a Pontiac assembly line. That same year Computer Identics installed scanners and a Digital PDP-8 computer at a General Trading Company plant in Carlstadt, NJ to track and assemble grocery orders. It scanned boxes on a conveyer belt so they could be diverted to the appropriate loading dock. In 1971, the AIM trade association (Automatic Identification Manufacturers) was formed by four charter members: Computer Identics, Identicon, 3M and MEKontrol. That same year, Computer Identics delivered the first scanners used for package recognition, early versions of the ones now used by delivery companies.

In June, 1971, Collins participated in the Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Freight Car Shortages of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Ninety-second Congress. The Senate Committee was interested in understanding the problem of poor freight car utilization, and how automated technologies could improve it. During the proceedings, Collins served as a technical expert and was questioned by Senator Pearson. During his remarks, Collins recalled the history of Automatic Car Identification (ACI), and of car marking. He testified that at the time of the hearings over 50 million digit stripes had been applied to the cars, costing about $25 million, and running at least a year behind the original deployment schedule. Collins testified as to the importance of focusing on the rail terminal rather than the rail main line for installation of scanning equipment. Installation of automated equipment such as that that had been installed in Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad, which captured the movement of all rolling equipment through the terminal would permit terminal managers to do a far better job eliminating mis-loads or lost car situations. In testimony, Collins recounted a predicted improvement in Postal Services through the use of the technology:

"[...] the emphasis in the use of data control in transportation has been to get a higher yield or a higher utility out of facilities, whether the facilities are fixed plant or rolling stock. The Post Office or Postal Service has just recently contracted for the use of this technology, automatic truck identification in this case, but using the same lable and the same technology for the Oakland bulk mail handling facility. This system will cost $900,000. Here you have a $50 million postal terminal, including the physical building itself, the mechanical handling system of the bulk mail inside, and the parking and the control system for the arrival and departure of the trucks. To spend 2 percent of the facility cost on a control system which controls the funnel or the throat through which all of the product comes into and must exit from ... is not a bad ratio of investment." Collins' submitted an accompanying written statement.

At the peak, 95 percent of rail cars are reported to have had a KarTrak code on the side.

In 1973, the grocery industry experimented with five different labeling technologies: bar codes, matrix codes, pie chart codes, fluorescing ink, and magnetic stripes. Ultimately, bar codes were selected as they were the most flexible. Products could be scanned from various angles and distances. Additionally, packaging could be a variety of shapes and ordinary ink could be used. The retail food industry adopted the use of barcodes by 1975, using laser scanners for point-of- sale price look-up and back room management. According to Brussels-based GS1, which maintains international UPC standards, the average number of daily scans is more than 5 billion.

Over the years, around $150 million was spent by the railroad industry setting up Collins' scanners and attaching the labels. However in the late 1970's, the AAR scrapped the requirement for the colored labels. When the requirement was dropped, Collins sued Southern Pacific, a railroad holding company, and Strong Wishart & Associates, a consulting firm, alleging a conflict of interest between the firms.

Collins' work also influenced the military and the world of athletics. In 1981, the Pentagon began requiring bar codes on all supplies sold to the military. Today, the military uses barcodes for asset management, identity management, supply chain and logistics, commissary and exchange management and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations. The New York City Marathon first approached him to use barcode for scoring in 1977. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, organizers used Computer Identics scanners to read barcodes printed on the badges of every athlete, journalist, and staff member. This enhanced security feature was successful and is still in use today. Also in 1984, Computer Identics developed Mac-Barcode® Software, the first WYSIWYG barcode label composition software, for the newly introduced Apple Macintosh.

In 1992, Collins was honored with the Richard Dilling Award. Established in 1984 and named for Richard R. Dilling, an industry pioneer, it is presented to executives, scientists, and engineers in recognition of outstanding contributions that have furthered the growth of the industry through important applications and new technological developments. And in 1993 he was honored with the J. Stanley Morehouse Memorial Award at Villanova University's School of Engineering for outstanding leadership at the highest level.

Following his tenure as CEO of Computer Identics, Collins formed Data Capture Institute, a research and consulting firm specializing in automatic identification technology. There he and his associates have provided system design and support to clients including the Federal Aviation Administration, M & M Mars and the Uniform Code Council (GS1). In his work for GS1, he developed the industry standard application identifier (AI) dictionary that classifies data collection formats.

In 2011, Collins received a Congressional Citation for his role in the establishment and creation of the barcode industry and in 2017 he gave a Ted talk at TedXBeaconStreet describing the history of the technology and the industry.

Currently, Collins serves as Chairman of the Board for A2B Tracking Solutions, of Portsmouth, RI.

Patents

• Patent #3,673,389 – “Identification and Registration System”
• Patent #3,743,819 – “Label Reading System”
• Patent #6,237,051 – “Asset Tracking Within and Across Enterprise Boundaries.”
• Patent #7,639,144 – “System and Method of Validating Asset Tracking Codes”
• Patent #8,981,905 -  “Secure Asset Tracking System”

Distinctions

• Author of “Using Bar Code: Why It’s Taking Over”, May 1, 1994
• Author of “Automatic Car Identification (ACI): The key to better car utilization”, Jan 1, 1975
• Member of the Department of Defense Integrated Product Team directing UID bar code and RFID tags to assets in the supply chain
• Past member of the Department of Homeland Security RFID Working Group.
• Founder and past Director of AIM Global, the Association of Automatic Identification and Mobility

Awards

• 2014 – La Salle College High School Hall of Fame
• 2011 - US Congressional Citation for his role as the “Father of the Barcode Industry”
• 1993 - The J. Stanley Morehouse Memorial Award – Villanova U. School of Engineering for: "Outstanding leadership at the highest level."
• 1992 – Richard Dilling Award

Further Reading

• Collins, David Jarrett (2017-11). "The Father of the Barcode". TedXBeaconStreet
• Wohlsen, Marcus (2013-04-12). "Ticker Clocks the Billions of Bar Codes Scanned Each Day". Wired Magazine
• Wood, Lamont (1989-03-19). "Inventor is leaving Mark Al Over Place". Chicago Tribune
• Flynn, Sean (2011-06-14). "Bar code founder honored for his vision 50 years ago". Newport Rhode Island Daily News
• Dunn, Peter (2015-10-20). "Alumni Profile: David Collins, SM '59. Making his mark on the world with bar codes". MIT Technology Review
• United States Congress Senate Committee on Commerce, Special Freight Car Shortage Subcommittee (1972). "Freight Car Shortages: Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on Freight Car Shortages of the Committee on Commerce"
• Simmons-Boardman Publishing corporation (1977). "Who's who in Railroading and Rail Transit, Volume 18"

References

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