The idea behind bar codes has been around since the late 1940s, but it was in the 1960s when a Villanova University civil engineering graduate named David J. Collins figured out a practical use for it.

Mr. Collins died March 12 at age 86, writes James R. Hagerty for The Wall Street Journal.  

Collins, who graduated Villanova in 1957, came up with the bar code as a way to track railcars while working for a Sylvania Electric Products Inc. lab in Waltham, Mass.

He figured out how to scan bar codes with flashes of light. By labeling the railcars with patterns of bars in various colors, scanners could read the codes and track the cars through Massachusetts.

 “It worked very, very well,” Mr. Collins said later.

His application turned bar codes from an idea into an indispensable part of modern life.

He left Sylvania to form Computer Identics Corp., developing laser scanners and systems to General Motors to keep track of parts on a Pontiac assembly line.

He stepped down as Computer Identics CEO in 1986 and as chairman in 1987. He formed a consulting firm, Data Capture Institute, in Duxbury.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal about the life of David J. Collins.