DigiKey Product Labels - Decoding DigiKey Barcodes

The DigiKey Product Labels (also known as Pick Labels) have key information that an end user may want leverage in the course of operations. This information is often consumed by a person visually, but an end user may also want to leverage this information to automate or speed up internal process so a 2D barcode is provided in the Data Matrix ECC 200 format. The information encoded in the barcode includes, but is not limited to:

Example Label
  • Invoice Number
  • Sales Order Number
  • Purchase Order (Alphanumeric)
  • Customer Reference (aka Customer Part Number)
  • Manufacture Part Number (aka Supplier Part Number)
  • Quantity in Bag/Packaging
  • DigiKey Part Number
  • Date Code
  • Lot Code
  • Country of Origin

Note: The fields MSL, Static Sensitivity, RHoS, [short] Part Description, and Manufacturer are printed on the label, but are not included in the barcode. If needed, provide feedback via the Feedback Tab on right hand side DigiKey website to let us know this would be useful. Alternatively, this information can also be obtained via integration to the DigiKey Part Search API.

The ECIA Standards Document

To decode the 2D barcode output, the primary document you’re going to want to be referencing is the EIGP 114.2018 spec from the ECIA.
The general format section starts on page 29 and here are a few notable screenshots:



An Example Explained

We’ll start with the following label:

The output of the 2D Barcode is this

[)>06PC1,C3,C5-71P86001067200830P732-8660-1-NDK1K8676178310K1046693009D14371T31751001143669511K14LCNQ111ZPICK12Z572861513Z99999920Z00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Note: There are non-visible control characters used as separators between fields.
This character is called the Group Separator (GS) and is unicode U+241D or ASCII 29 or 0x1d , some text editors will display this character like this, but is typically not rendered by most normal text viewing methods.

Screenshot of text with the non-visible characters

Field Identifier Field Name Example Content Notes
ISO/IEC 15434 Header ISO/IEC 15434 Header ISO/IEC 15434 Header The header signifies the start of the barcode string it includes both the Record Separator and Group Separator characters
P Customer Part Number PC1,C3,C5-7 This is referred to as Customer Reference on the DigiKey website, on the label, and in other documentation. People often use it for other purpose such as internal PNs, reference designators, and for splitting orders between people.If left blank by the user on the website, this will default to the DigiKey Part Number when reading the barcode, but will remain blank on the label and other documentation. This field is for customer reference only, . Screenshots of where to input this on the website
1P Supplier Part Number 1P860010672008 This is the Vendor/Manufacturer who supplies DigiKey with the part. This is the same as the Manufacturer on the label
30P DigiKey Part Number 30P732-8660-1-ND This is not represented in the ECIA spec, but the field being used is found in the ANSI MH10.8.2-2016 spec on which the ECIA spec is based. In the ANSI spec it is called First Level (Supplier Assigned) Part Number. Fun -ND Fact
K Purchase Order K(blank in example) This alphanumeric string is provided by the customer during checkout.
1K DigiKey Sales Order Number 1K86761783 This can be shared across multiple invoices and time periods and is generated as an order enters our system from any vector (web, API, phone order, etc.)
10K DigiKey Invoice Number 10K104669300 This is typically assigned per shipment as items are being released to be picked in the warehouse. A SO can have many Invoice numbers
9D Date Code 9D1437 Date Code as provided by Manufacturer on the product packaging. This a deviation from the spec’s YYWW format.
1T Lot Code 1T317510011436695 Lot Code as provided by Manufacturer on the packaging received by DigiKey.
11K Packing List Number 11K1 An order may have multiple packing lists, this is the number of the packing list itself, not the line line item (TODO insert packing List Example)
4L Country of Origin 4LCN is the Country of Origin provided as a 2 letter country code from the ISO 3166 list In this example the Country is China.
Q Quantity Q1 Quantity in package on which the label is affixed. In this case it’s just a single piece
11Z Label Type (Internal Field) 11ZPICK This is for internal DigiKey purposes and defines the label type.
12Z Part ID (Internal Field) 12Z5726907 You will also see this as the last part of a URL for a product detail page. Ex https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/w%C3%BCrth-elektronik/860010672008/5726907
13Z Not Used(Internal Field) 13Z999999
20Z Barcode Padding 20Z0000… This is a field of varying length used to keep the barcode approximately the same size between labels. It is safe to ignore.

Customer Reference Locations


A Second Example

The output of the 2D Barcode is this

[)>06PQ1045-ND1P364019-0130PQ1045-NDK12432 TRAVIS FOSS P1K8573287310K1033329569D2310131TQJ13P11K14LTWQ311ZPICK12Z736098813Z99999920Z0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Screenshot of text with the non-visible characters

image

Field Identifier Field Name Example Content Notes
ISO/IEC 15434 Header ISO/IEC 15434 Header ISO/IEC 15434 Header The header signifies the start of the barcode string it includes both the Record Separator and Group Separator characters
P Customer Reference PQ1045-ND This is referred to as Customer Part Number in the specification. People often use it for other purpose such as Internal PNs, Reference Designators, and for splitting orders between people.If left blank by the user on the website, this will default to the DigiKey Part Number when reading the label. Locations to input this field on the website
1P Supplier Part Number 1P364019-01 This is the Vendor/Manufacturer who supplies DigiKey with the part. This is the same as the Manufacturer on the label.
30P DigiKey Part Number 30PQ1045-ND This is not represented in the ECIA spec, but the field being used is found in the ANSI MH10.8.2-2016 spec on which the ECIA spec is based. In the ANSI spec it is called First Level (Supplier Assigned) Part Number. Fun -ND Fact
K Purchase Order K12432 TRAVIS FOSS P This is provided by the customer during checkout.
1K DigiKey Sales Order Number 1K85732873 This can be shared across multiple invoices and time periods and is generated as an order enters our system from any vector (web, api, phone order, etc.)
10K DigiKey Invoice Number 10K103332956 This is typically assigned per shipment as items are being released to be picked in the warehouse. A SO can have many Invoice numbers
9D Date Code 9D231013 Date Code as provided by Manufacturer on the product packaging. This a deviation from the spec’s YYWW format.
1T Lot Code 1TQJ13P Lot Code as provided by Manufacturer on the Packaging.
11K Packing List Number 11K1
4L Country of Origin 4LTW
Q Quantity Q3 Quantity in package on which the label is affixed
11Z Label Type (Internal Field) 11ZPICK This is for internal DigiKey purposes.
12Z Part ID (Internal Field) 12Z7360988 You will also see this as the last part of a URL for a product detail page. Ex https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/qualtek/364019-01/7360988
13Z Not Used(Internal Field) 13Z999999
20Z Barcode Padding 20Z0000… This is a field of varying length used to keep the barcode approximately the same size between labels. It is safe to ignore.

Other Barcodes

There are two other 1D barcodes on the on the pick label. The one labeled with oLPN is an internal number that ties items in a shipment together. The vertical one on the right side is an internal number that is related to this specific pick in the warehouse, this number is universally unique over time.

Scanning the Barcodes

The DigiKey App - One option is to download the DigiKey Android or iPhone app, both can scan the Datamatrix code to bring you to the Product Detail Page for the part, but won’t decode the actual contents of the barcode as implemented. Please provide feedback in the the respective Apps to request additional features.

Other Phone Apps - An excellent app for scanning all kinds of barcodes is the Barcode Scanner App from Cognex iOS and Android.

On a Computer - To scan to a computer you will need a 2d capable barcode reader to be able to read the DataMatrix format. It will output the raw [)>06 string format as a keyboard and you will need to decode the values in your own application using the guide above. It is also possible to scan barcodes from a variety of “Online Barcode Scanning Websites”, but you will need a much better than average webcam to make this work reliably. Some web based parts management tools like Partsbox and offline apps like InvenTree and have built in features that fully decodes DigiKey barcodes.

Other References