Inventory with printed QR-code labels¶
If you have a sample or chemical inventory in the lab, labeling the samples or chemicals with bar-/QR-codes and reading the labels with mobile devices (e.g. ipads, tablet or smartphone) helps managing the inventory. If you use an ELN/LIMS like openBIS where you have a digital inventory, you can track and update your inventory easily online.
The picture below shows how the samples or chemicals in the physical inventory are labeled with QR-codes, then scanned via ipads and then the information about the inventory item is directly displayed via link in the ELN browser of openBIS.
How to digitalize your lab inventory¶
If you like to digitalize your inventory like in the picture above, you need to:
- label your inventory items with bar- or QR-codes, which requires a label printer and you need to enable bardcodes in openBIS.
- Scan your bar-/QR-code with with a mobile device like an ipad, tablet or smartphone.
Label printers¶
There are at the moment 2 versions of label printers in use:
- label printer from Brother (QL-820NWB). It is cheap at around 200 CHF and is suitable for the following purposes:
- labels don't have to last 10 years
- Only a few people work with the labels
- It was easy to connect without IT support
- a quick and inexpensive solution
- Label Printer from Zebra Technologies. Two possible options are the ZD621t 300 dpi USB, RS232, LAN, BT for around 600 CHF or the ZT231 300dpi TT/USB/RS-232/BT/LAN for around 1'000 CHF (relevant is the 300dpi). Suitable for the following purposes:
- Labels are available for a lot of applications e.g. Liq N2, Chemicals, Hard adhesive etc. Important for possible preservation for more than 10 years is the thermal transfer and that the film contains wax (Used in many professional laboratories e.g. medical, pharmaceutical research, shipping etc.)
- Professional programme called "NiceLabel" available for creating label designs.
- Can be connected to the Empa network. ICT provides support for the connection, i.e. printing from various PCs (official solution with service agreement with ICT)
- Matthias Rösslein can provide support to set everything up, please contact him via e-mail.
Benefit of digitalizing the lab inventory¶
You can store and manage information about chemicals, samples and instrument in openBIS tables and upload existing Excel tables into openBIS. These are possible benefits:
- higher sustainability and lower costs, as the easy retrieval of laboratory inventory information prevents, for example, chemicals from being reordered, even though they are still available;
- time saving, by enabling digital search of the inventories for, e.g., locating items, which should, in turn, simplify the labs logistics and maintenance;
- enhanced, accelerated and simplified material/instrument information retrieval by the synergistic use of other tools integrated in the openBIS ecosystem, e.g., ipads, QR-/bar-codes scanners and printers.
A chemial inventory table in openBIS, can contain information about:
- location, linked to openBIS' storage manager, which helps managing the locations of any kind of inventory items
- links to webpages of the manufacturers/suppliers, e.g., for ordering online or contacting the customer support service
- e-mail links to the Lab's responsible contact people
- registration/modification dates, of which you can look up the history of changes
Example picture:
