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Computype, Inc. is an American printing company specializing in barcodes.

History
Computype, Inc.'s roots trace back to 1966 when a small group of St. Paul, Minnesota investors formed a computer typesetting operation. In 1969 the operation was sold to Aspen Systems Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1971 it was acquired by American Can Company. In 1975 the company was bought from American Can by a group of three investors. Currently the company is under family ownership.

In 1975 the company was primarily involved in publishing and typesetting corporate directories and the Daily Addendum and Intercept Record published for the telephone company. Computype's bar code production began in the early 1970s and eventually became its sole focus in 1984 when the company sold its directory and typesetting operations.

In the 1980s, the company acquired its primary competitor in the UK and established its European headquarters there. Another acquisition was as a New Hampshire-based provider of thermal transfer labels for short-run, quick turnaround needs, now called Concord Labels. Sales offices are maintained throughout the Americas, Europe, and Australasia.

In the mid 1990s, vertical integration was achieved when the company established its own coating line (called ‘CastCal’), enabling it to develop and coat custom adhesives and top coats without the huge volume commitments typically required by outside suppliers.

During that same era, Computype ventured into software development with its acquisition of BioPath of Tucson, Arizona. The company had developed a 2-D symbology-based system for identifying and tracking PAP smears from the physician’s office throughout the transport and testing process. While success with that product, called STICS (Sample Tracking and Information Control System), was limited, the software development staff became critical to the continued growth of the company. They developed customized software-based solutions for a broad range of markets, including automotive, healthcare, and life sciences.

Technologies and markets
The company's initial success in bar codes was achieved in the library industry. Computype engineered bar code labels for books which were resistant to ultraviolet radiation. The company determined that there were other industries that could benefit from its engineering capabilities.

An international group of blood banks, led by the American Red Cross, had explicit requirements for product performance that exceeded any other bar code label users. Symbol image quality, die cutting, printing registration, and adhesive performance in a regulated environment were among the requirements presented by the blood bank community. The company’s experience with database management enabled it to maintain sequence history for individual blood banks and prevent the shipping of any duplicate Donation Identification Numbers—an error that could result in the death of the recipient of that mislabeled blood product. Because of these capabilities, Computype became a leading supplier to that market.

The company was actively involved with the development and promulgation of the new ISBT 128 standard for blood labeling. In fact, it was a representative from Computype (Bruce R. Wray) who made the initial recommendation that the blood bank community make a change from Codabar to Code 128 at a meeting of the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT) Working Party on Automation and Data Processing in the Netherlands in October of 1989.

Wray served on the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) Information Systems Committee, the ARC Label Task Force, and the North American Technical Advisory Group of the International Council for Commonality in Blood Banking Automation (ICCBBA), the current "owner" of the worldwide ISBT 128 labeling standard. For that same organization, he also co-authored the technical paper on timed ISBT 128 concatenation, an RFID overview, a tutorial entitled ‘ISBT 128: An Introduction to Bar Coding,’ and an early rationale for the choice of symbology called ‘Why Code 128?’

He also wrote the chapter on "Bar Code Data Collection in the Blood Bank" in the AABB book entitled Information Technology in Transfusion Medicine, and spoke at numerous AABB annual meetings on the topics of ISBT 128 label printing/scanning, and vendor quality programs, including events in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005, along with a presentation to the AABB directors and staff on the ISBT 128 standard, label printing, scanning and RFID technology in May, 2005. The Wiki Encyclopedia entry for ISBT 128 contains an external link to the Computype website.

The company's ability to meet the standards of the blood transfusion industry allowed it to achieve similar gains in other industries such as auto, tire, clinical and analytical laboratories, electronics and general manufacturing, and fabric care.

Fueling the company’s early growth was the computer-controlled photographic process the company pioneered to produce bar code label products. In photocomposition, the bar code image is an actual archival photographic original that is formed within the photosensitive paper, much like a black and white photograph is "fixed" into the paper.

As print technologies evolved and market needs changed, the company expanded its variable imaging technology beyond photographic, including digital color ("DigiTek"), flexography, thermal transfer, and ink jet. Emphases on quality and customer-specific engineering continue to characterize the business, along with a forward look to RFID. Computype has already been involved in several RFID applications, and intends to bring the same technical leadership and customer focus to that area as it has to other technologies throughout its history.