Sample Barcoding leads to 10,000 Times Fewer Errors!

The Brady Corporation say that sample barcoding is 10,000 times less error-prone than conventional keyboard entry of sample data. They are confident that automating sample identification by using barcodes will show immediate benefits in costs, time and labour as well as far fewer errors.

Barcodes, indispensable in high volume applications like High Throughput Screening, also have many advantages for the lower volume user. For example, many laboratory consumables like vials and straws have very limited space available for labelling, and far more information can be stored in a single 2-dimensional barcode than on a conventional printed label of the same size - let alone a handwritten one.

The latest version of Brady´s IdentiLab™ software can create a barcode comprising up to 150 characters. Using a state-of-the-art barcode scanner like the Brady CR3, all this information can be captured instantaneously and unambiguously. The CR3 can be used connected to a PC, or more conveniently as a go-anywhere hand-held device, ideal for use in centralised sample storage facilities and the like.

Creating this electronic link to the sample with the CR3 can also give instant access to a database and all the available information about the sample. By their very nature, barcodes are also more secure than text, not just because they cannot be read visually, but because they are less vulnerable to damage - a sample with a 2-dimensional DataMatrix barcode using the latest ECC200 error correction coding can still be identified even if up to 60% of the barcode has somehow been destroyed.

A huge range of barcode-compatible label products is available from Brady to suit any laboratory situation - labels for slides, well plates, vials, 'straws', centrifuge tubes, flasks and many others. There are self-laminating labels that will survive freezing (in liquid nitrogen!), autoclaving, and solvents like xylene and ethanol. Brady´s unique Freezerbondz™ labels can be applied directly to frozen surfaces with guarantees on adhesion and long-term legibility.