Hundreds of skis, thousands of people, and billions of dollars worth of assets – what do they have in common? All of the above and more have been carefully monitored and tracked for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. For security and logistical purposes, the Olympic committee needed to stay in control of what – and who – entered the Olympic facilities. Without control of people and assets, the Winter Games could have faced critical security threats or left athletes without their equipment, unable to compete.
So how was Sochi able to maintain control of so many assets coming in from all over the world? The same way it’s been done for years: barcodes.
But why are barcodes Sochi’s go-to method for security and logistics?
Security:
Nearly 100,000 spectator seats are available at any given time for all of the Olympic competition venues. In addition to the massive crowd of fans and spectators, over 5,500 athletes, 12,000 news channel representatives, and 25,000 volunteers flood the competing areas as well. With all of these people in one area, knowing how many people enter the stadiums and competition grounds is essential. The most effective way of controlling a crowd of this caliber is through barcodes on tickets and passes into the areas like the ones shown below. Without these barcodes, hundreds of thousands of people from over 80 countries would be nearly impossible to contain and keep watch over. And at an event like the Olympics, international security threats are high on the list of things to prevent, manage, and control.
Logistics:
Let’s take bobsleds, for example. The bobsleds used by the US Bobsled teams cost around $150,000 each. These sleds, along with all of the other sleds and equipment for other sports, get sent from around the world to one location. Apart from the millions of dollars worth of equipment that were sent to Sochi, athletes of all sports needed their equipment to compete – and that is enough of a reason to track all shipments very carefully!
Barcodes were the go-to method of efficiently tracking the logistics of these valuable shipments. Just like how warehousing and distribution centers manage their supply chains, Russia’s Customs Union had to carefully keep track of the valuable assets they handled. While a single data entry error could result in catastrophic losses in managed assets, barcode scanners can keep track of all incoming shipments quickly and efficiently. Due to the distance traveled, shipments may have come in roughed up and worn. Hopefully, Russian custom officials were using a dependable barcode scanner, along the lines of Honeywell’s Xenon 1900. The Xenon 1900, along with other Honeywell scanners, is able to read smudged and damaged barcodes, allowing for effective and cost-efficient tracking without the burden of manually inserting shipment information due to a damaged barcode.
As the Sochi Winter Olympics come to an end this weekend, security will need to safely control the crowd’s flow out of the Olympic Park while the logistics team has a heavy task of tracking shipments back to their designated locations across the globe. For future assessments of the Olympics and their use of barcodes, keep an eye out for more blogs and infographics on our Resource Center.