E-DRUG: Your experience and opinions on the use of barcodes (3)
-------------------------------------------------
I was involved in 1992 and several years thereafter, in persuading industry
in South Africa to mark all pharmaceutical and medically related stock
intended for State tender purposes with a machine readable code and would
like to share my experience.
1. There are a few factors to consider before embarking on using
barcodes.
* Persuasion of suppliers to mark their products at outer case, shelf
pack and dispensing pack.
* Deciding what the barcoding should achieve. This could include
product identification, batch and expiry date, and even be used for
individual dispensing pack tracking.
* The levels in the organisation distribution chain at which
barcoding/machine readable codes will be used.
2. Suppliers need a considerable time to change their processes and
need to know that their customer will be prepared to apply penalties or
refuse acceptance of goods after a period of grace has expired. Any period
of grace needs to acknowledge:
* Existing supplies of packaged stock,
* Existing supplies of packaging,
* Changes required to in house software to cross reference existing in
house codes to the structured alpha numeric code behind the machine readable symbology.
* Changes required to pre-printed labels or production line printers.
In South Africa we granted suppliers a period of 24 months to comply, after
which it became a tender requirement to provide the code for the product
together with their tender documents. Products supplied by successful
tenderers were then inspected to see if the appropriate symbology
corresponding to the code supplied had been applied to outer cases, shelf
packs and dispensing packs. We decided to go the route of FMCG using the
EAN13 to start with as it was well tried and there was good technical
support.
Until a majority of suppliers are compliant there is little purpose in doing more than preparation in house for future use of barcodes/machine readable codes in the distribution chain.
3. The decision on what to use machine readable codes for, will largely
determine what symbology suppliers are instructed to use:
* Machine recognition of product by brand and pack size would indicate
use of the 13 digit EAN13 (European Article Number incorporating a check
digit) or the American UPC (12 digit) which are machine interchangeable.
This consists of a linear series of thick or thin black or white stripes.
This is the grocery type of symbology.
* Recognition of the product plus extra information such as batch and
expiry date could use a linear code like the EAN128 with similar
characteristics to the EAN13, or the portable data file PDF417 which has a
two dimensional format similar to a crossword puzzle. These are larger and
require a bit more space on the product.
* Product tracking will need a level of sophistication in integrated
systems both at supplier and state warehouse level that is not attainable in many countries.
* RFID (radio frequency ID) using passive transponders will be with us
in a usable form later but the cost of the transponders and the radio wave
penetration are aspects needing to be improved on.
Attaining a level of recognition of the generic product as needed by
government stores requires a good, well maintained database where all the
branded products of like formulation and packsize are cross referenced with
the in house number used by the state. This could be the NATO code, National Stock number as in South Africa or an in house number based on the National Formulary as used in Moçambique.
The subject is too huge to discuss in an open forum. I am available for
further discussion if anyone needs more specific information.
Regards
Tony Odendaal
Mushonga Logistics Consultants
Mobile Tony Odendaal +27 83 274 1519 (Moçambique +258 84 501 2270)
Mobile Marita van Rooyen +27 82 324 3847 (Moçambique +258 84 501 2290)
Fax +27 86 640 0 640
tony@mushonga.co.za
mariet@mushonga.co.za
tony@mushonga.co.za
www.mushonga.co.za <http://www.mushonga.co.za/>