Quality Systems International Corporation 545 Island Road QSI Whitepaper Ramsey, NJ 07446 1.201.251.2101 (Phone) 1.201.740.0905 (Fax) http://www.qsius.com http://support.qsius.com Using Barcodes with WinLIMS The use of barcode labels as a means to quickly and positively identify samples is an ideal way to track samples to and through the laboratory. Although seemingly mysterious, the integration of barcodes with WinLIMS is both simple, yet complex. Barcodes are simple in concept, but complex in their application because of the wide variety of variables that exist within each organization. This white paper provides a basic description of what barcodes are, how they are generally used, why they are used along with examples of the variety of circumstances that are encountered in various laboratories. What you’ll see is that there is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ solution because bar coding is actually a ‘system’ that consists of several parts that must work in unison to provide a business solution that makes your organization more efficient and improves the quality of your products and/or services. The goal of the paper it to provide you with information you can use to determine the best barcode ‘system’ for you. Why Use a Barcode? The first successful use of barcodes was introduced by the US grocery industry. The industry adopted a 10 digit number UPC (Universal Product Code) for unique product marking in an effort to better control product inventory within warehouses. As computers became less expensive and more widespread, an electronic reading mechanism was devised (barcodes and scanners) to allow all levels of staff members (and not highly-trained computer operators) to identify products using UPCs by scanning their barcodes and replace the time- consuming, error-prone process of manual identification. The image to the right is the UPC for an 89 oz container of TropicanaTM Orange Juice. Note the actual, human-readable numbers are included below the barcode. Today barcodes are used at the checkout counter by sales clerks and customers during the sales process, by warehouse staff members to confirm the receipt of orders and by buyers to purchase products. The integration of barcodes with the computing systems eliminates a large amount of necessary work. Upon reading the UPC barcode, it is decrypted into to its human-readable value by the scanner and passed to the connected computer to identify the product, locate its price and manage its inventory. It also improves customer satisfaction by keeping shelves properly stocked while speeding up the entire checkout process. What is a Barcode? A barcode can simply be considered to be a machine-readable font that is most frequently used to quickly and accurately identify a product or item by a computing device. Just as you can generate documents using a wide variety and sizes of fonts to accommodate your reading audience, you can also print out machine-readable barcodes that can be read by a barcode scanning device in a variety of barcode fonts and sizes to accommodate the requirements and limitations of your barcode reader. We’ll discuss barcode readers later, but we’ll start by providing a visual understanding of barcodes. The most popular barcodes used today are 1 dimensional (1D) where each alpha-numeric character is represented by a certain number of vertical lines of various thicknesses. The name ‘barcode’ was derived from the appearance of these fonts because they look like a series of ‘bars’. There are actually several 1D barcode font ‘symbologies’; Using Barcodes with WinLIMS Page 1 of 11 Quality Systems International Corporation 545 Island Road QSI Whitepaper Ramsey, NJ 07446 1.201.251.2101 (Phone) 1.201.740.0905 (Fax) http://www.qsius.com http://support.qsius.com the most popular of which are Code 39, Code 128 and Code 11 but there are several other industry-specific formats. The following table is a display of numbers that are associated with the Code 39 ‘symbology’. Font: Times New Roman 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Font: Code39AzaleaNarrow3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Font: Code39AzaleaRegular3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Font: Code39AzaleaWide3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 If you’re eyes are good enough, you can manually decode 1D barcodes. For example, using an enlarged version of the Code39AzaleaWide3 font, the number 257 would be the following three characters: 2 (2) followed by a 5 (5) followed by a 7 (7) – or when combined become: 257 Letters can also be represented as barcodes. The table below shows several letters represented as barcodes. Font: Times New Roman A B C D E F G H I J Font: Code39AzaleaNarrow3 A B C D E F G H I J Font: Code39AzaleaRegular3 A B C D E F G H I J Font: Code39AzaleaWide3 A B C D E F G H I J Just as you can combine barcode numbers together, you can also combine letters together to spell words. For example, a barcode representation of the word BEAD would be: BEAD What this means is that you can represent any identifier, word, phrase, etc. using barcodes. In fact, you can print an entire novel using barcode fonts if you wish. All that is required is that your printers have the capability to print the desired font onto the desired media. Fonts can be obtained as freeware or can cost several hundred dollars. You may find that the quality of purchased fonts is higher than those that are obtained for free. 2-Dimensional Barcodes (Symbols) A newer class of barcodes that are referred to as 2 dimensional (2D) barcodes have been introduced. These can include entire record sets within a very small area and can be pre- processed prior to passing information to the database in order provide more functionality and user interaction where practical. To date, these have not gained a great deal of popularity due to the limited need for such information-packed symbols and the higher cost associated with implementing these systems; however, they are ideal when space is at 2 Dimensional Barcode Using Barcodes with WinLIMS Page 2 of 11 Quality Systems International Corporation 545 Island Road QSI Whitepaper Ramsey, NJ 07446 1.201.251.2101 (Phone) 1.201.740.0905 (Fax) http://www.qsius.com http://support.qsius.com a premium. RFID Labels It is more likely that laboratories will migrate to use RFID tags in the near future in lieu of 2D barcodes because they provide more information and functionality that are more germane to laboratory use. RFID tags are actually microchips that are attached to an antenna that can be affixed to an object. The tag contains unique serial number that can be associated with the item to which it is affixed. In addition to identifying the object, the RFID tag can also be used to physically locate the item in order to prevent them from ever RFID Tag being misplaced. The limits to RFID have more to do with costs of implementation and ongoing use and support than they do with the actual benefits available. RFID can be costly and the business that looks into RFID needs to be very specific about their expected return on investment. That said, RFID is used by thousands of companies and its use grow as its relative costs decline. Barcode Font and Size Since the most cost-effective and practical type of electronic identification for the laboratory remains the 1D barcode label we’ll concentrate on this type of labeling system. As previously shown, there are a variety of barcode ‘symbologies’ and each has its own internal variations. Within each symbology note that the relative widths of each of the lines (bars) remain proportionally constant, only the heights of the 4 4 4 barcodes will vary. If you look at the barcodes to the right, all represent the different Code39AzaleaRegular3 @ 6, 9 & 11 points variations within the Code 39 font symbology. The font you select should be based on a variety of Data value represented site-specific needs, circumstances, network layout, Print media (size and type) budget and a number of other factors. A limited list Available space on the media of these factors is included to the right. As you can Environment (temperature, humidity, light, etc.) see, there are several considerations and these will Scanning device be discussed within the section titled Use of Barcodes in the Laboratories. Barcode Readers So far we’ve discussed why barcodes are used and described the various characteristics of barcodes and now we get to the reason for all of the choices; the reader. The whole concept of reading barcodes was developed in response to the reader. It is your choice of reader that greatly influences the barcode font and printer. The quality and type (handheld, portable, wand, ruggedness, etc.) of reader dictates: the barcode symbology that can be used the size of the barcode that can be used the media that can be used to print the barcode Handheld scanners Using Barcodes with WinLIMS Page 3 of 11 Quality Systems International Corporation 545 Island Road QSI Whitepaper Ramsey, NJ 07446 1.201.251.2101 (Phone) 1.201.740.0905 (Fax) http://www.qsius.com http://support.qsius.com The most popular reader is the hand-held barcode scanner that is directly connected to a PC via a USB connection. Most of these have built-in decoders that can read several different barcode symbologies and receive their power from the PC keyboard or USB port so no external power supply is required.