2D (datamatrix) barcoding for stock control (5th August 2011)

Posted on 05. Aug, 2011 by in News

Staff from Teleos attended an update briefing at NVS this week on their future plans for handling 2D barcoding.

Since the introduction of 2D (datamatrix) barcodes (as opposed to the old linear barcodes still widely in use in supermarkets) there has been a complete lack of any cross-reference of the manufacturer barcode to the wholesaler product code. This has applied to ALL wholesalers and all requests for this information have been met with the response that the wholesalers did not have this information themselves.

Primarily for this reason, we  introduced a ‘barcode learning’ process into our Quick Price Check some time ago to allow those Practices who had purchased 2D scanners to actually be able to use them. Immediately prior to this, they were unable to be used for anything meaningful other than for the ‘tote’ single-click re-stocking barcode (which is only available to Centaur customers anyway).

Datamatrix barcodes are capable of storing much greater amounts of data than the traditional linear ones and their initial use was triggered by the last BSE crisis. After this, legislation was brought in requiring manufacturers of any drug potentially affecting the food-chain to be barcoded with additional information to enhance traceability. In the veterinary market, this covers all POMs and is essentially to incorporate batch information and an expiry date. Unfortunately – as with many ‘new standards’ – the manufacturers have implemented this legislation in slightly differing ways resulting in the information contained within the barcode not being stored in a consistent order (this was not defined in the legislation). In addition, certain manufacturers have used inappropriate colouring for their barcodes and even inverted the normal colours causing the scanners to be unable to read them properly or, in some cases, at all !

NVS have spent the last year examining every barcode that has come through their warehouse building up, in the process, a comprehensive cross-reference table of manufacturers codes and how they translate to the NVS product code. For their customers, this information will be incorporated automatically within their Teleos system and it will be dynamically updated – initially on a weekly basis but eventually daily. This should mean that NVS customers can fully implement barcoding stock control with the minimum of Practice input in the near future.

Hopefully other wholesalers have been working behind the scenes in a similar way to NVS although – to date – we have no further information from them.

As regards barcode scanners themselves, NVS will not – as a matter of policy – be recommending any hardware to Practices. The commonly-held view is that you get what you pay for with 2D scanners in terms of their ability to read the many variations of barcode quality being produced. To date Teleos has been supplying the Symbol DS3408 (wired) and DS3478 (wireless) units and, whilst cheaper units are available, we have no immediate plans to change this.

If any Practice wishes to consider barcoding and stock control via any wholesaler please contact Support for the latest information.

Teleos Systems Development Team (13:10 on Fri 5th August 2011)