Our recent advance towards the QR tagging or coding has changed the game dramatically for us. Since the cost of the QR code is only relevant to the material it is printed, then anything you can imagine or own can become an asset in our system limited only by the cost of the label or hang tag material. This means that you could manage tools from your shop, trees, shrubs, or your landscape equipment and park furniture i.e. low value and high value assets. The QR tagging has enabled item level, high volume, low $ value asset tagging. The item level is the key. This means each individual item, each tree, shrub pot or bench has its own identity in the data base.
Applied to the green industry individual tree or container tagging can occur at a very low label cost. Currently tree labels cost about 2.5 to 3 cents each. Add one penny to the cost to print with a QR code. (see below for explanation) which makes the QR coding basically free. All or most nurseries already use loop or pot labels.
Bar-coding is a general term for what we typically see out there now as linear barcode or UPC code. QR coding is actually a matrix barcode or 2 dimensional barcode. It reads quicker than linear or 1 dimension and can store more data. A 1D code with 40 characters of info is much longer than one with 10 characters. QR codes hold much more data and only get more dense as the character count increases.
Currently QR is being used in mainstream to provide quick access in a smart phone environment to bring the scanner user on a smart phone to a predetermined website for marketing or information reasons. Once the code is printed, say in the Globe and Mail newspaper on a certain day, when scanned it would bring you to an advertisers website. All the QRs in today’s paper on page 17 are the same and point you to the same web location of the advertiser. On page 33 of the same paper there would be a different QR code pointing to a different advertisers website. But all the QRs in that location for the day are the same, thousands of them pointing to the same location.
Our system differs in that we generate sequential QR codes that when accessed by a mobile device, the device returns the asset data to the user. The asset never changes in the data base but the data content changes at the will of the client administrator, i.e. more captured task events, more pictures, updated documents, eventually audio files, etc.
The difference with our system is that we are controlling and generating QR codes for use in asset identification. This means that since every asset is unique in our database ( item level management, see above ) and that each and every QR code that is used in our system also needs to be unique. Therefore we need control. To maintain control we, or the client, either generate or “make” each and every code from within our myhistree.net web interface. The character string requirements that our software looks is 24 characters long and is sequentially generated. The last 11 digits are printed on the label for visual reference purposes. The client or web user can generate the codes in bulk and then choose a printing option on existing label stock like Avery. As well, we have contracted with C Frensch Ltd, a tree label supplier, to be our certified loop label supplier in Canada to produce QR printed labels under our direction and control.
The interesting part is that the codes, when printed on a roll stock of labels, have no relevance to a client or asset until such time that the client actually builds a data set on their scanner and then scans the QR to associate that specific QR with that specific asset in the database. Its like puting a license plate on a car. Now when that QR is referenced by the smart phone app or scanner, the asset specific information will be returned to the user. The asset specific information can include asset attributes, species, size model, year, color etc. etc., or task or event data, which includes inspections, repairs, assessments, or any activity that has occurred with that asset. As well and pictures or documents that have been associated with that asset are accessed from the smart phone interface.