Say you are purchasing wood to construct an outdoor patio. You don’t want just any old brand of lumber. You want to know the source of where the product came from. Aside from its location, you want to ensure that the wood is of high quality and is built to last for your purposes.

When such product information becomes automated and entered into a database, this type of oversight becomes possible. In the lumber industry, this would work by including a bar code on each piece of wood.