PZN barcode is a type of linear barcode and is a slightly modified version of code 39 barcode standards in a way that it can encode numbers only. PZN stands for Pharma zentral number or Pharma-Zentral-Number. It is also sometimes called Code PZN or CodePZN.
Structure and Variants
There are two variant of the PZN barcode standard, PZN-7 which is capable of encoding 6 or 7 digits and PZN-8 which is a more advanced version and can encode 7 or 8 digits. A special thing about PZN barcodes is that in these barcodes PZN is prefixed before the actual data being encoded. It is important to note that this PZN is generated automatically by the device and is not part of the barcode, it there just to reflect that this is a PZN barcode. A checksum digit is also appended at the end of the code based on the modulo 11 algorithm.
Purpose
Germany pharmaceutical industry wanted to devise its own barcode standard in order to encode and decode information about the medical equipment and surgical tools. It is for this reason; PZN barcode standard was developed and widely used in pharmaceutical industry in Germany.
Advantages
· PZA barcode is a linear barcode standard and is extremely simple to encode and decode without any extensive training.
· Simple devices are enough to encode and decode information in these barcodes and no specialized hardware is required for this purpose.
· Numeric only encoding and decoding makes this barcode, extremely fast to encode and decode information.
· PZN barcode is secure because of checksum digit appended at the end of the code.
Limitations
· PZN barcode is a numeric only code. It cannot encode alphabets and special characters.
· PZN barcode is less dense as compared to the contemporary linear barcodes and it cannot store much information in small area.
· Being a linear barcode, the fault tolerance of PZN barcode is less and barcode, once distorted or destroyed is not easy to decode.
Usage
As aforementioned, PZN barcode standard was developed specifically for German Pharmaceutical industry; there Pharmaceutical industry of Germany is making most of the use of PZN barcode in order to encode information about surgical tools and medical equipment.