Printing lot codes customers can read

BatchRoute ignores case and spaces, and matches everything else exactly. l2607-a14 and L2607 -A14 both find L2607-A14. But a hyphen, a slash or a full stop is part of the code: L2607A14 does not find L2607-A14, and it will not guess.

That exactness is deliberate. A lookup that matched “close enough” could answer a customer with the status and certificate of a different production run — including telling them a lot is fine when theirs is recalled.

The most avoidable mismatch is between the code on the pack and the code in the workspace. If the coder on your line prints L2607-A14, enter it with the hyphen; if it prints a slash, enter the slash. Check a real pack from the run, not the batch record from the manufacturer, when the two might be formatted differently.

Within one product, every batch needs its own code — the workspace will not accept a second batch with a lot code the product already has. Different products can share a code.

Some characters look alike in small print, and more so on a curved surface or through a phone camera held at an angle. The usual pairs:

• 0 and O
• 1, I and l
• 5 and S, 8 and B, 2 and Z

If you control the format, the simplest fix is to avoid mixing the look-alikes in positions where either could appear — for example, digits only after a fixed letter prefix. When nothing matches, the verification page already reminds the customer that a 0 and an O, or a 1 and an I, are easy to swap.

• Contrast first. Dark print on a light, matt area reads best. Codes embossed into a cap or printed over a busy label design are the hardest to read.
• Big enough to read without squinting. The code is typed by the customer, not scanned, so every character has to be legible to a person.
• Put it where people look. When a customer arrives, the page tells them the lot code is usually stamped near the best-before date, on the base of the pack or along the edge of the label. If yours is somewhere else, say where in the line you print beside the QR code.
• Check real packs from the line. A code that is crisp on a proof can smear, skew or break up at production speed. Read a few finished packs and type the codes in yourself before the run ships.

Every product in the workspace has a panel of the lot codes customers typed and BatchRoute could not match. When one of them is within two characters of a lot code you actually have, the panel shows that lot beside it — so a pattern like L26O7-A14 next to L2607-A14 points straight at the character your print is losing.

The panel shows what was typed and nothing about who typed it: a lookup record holds the product, the text entered and the time, and has no field that identifies the person.

BatchRoute publishes and hosts the batch information you give it. It is verification and documentation infrastructure — not a testing laboratory, a certification body, or a statement that a product meets any regulation. We don't test your product, review your laboratory results, certify anything or determine regulatory compliance. You remain responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of what you publish.