GS1Locatenet - GLN Directory Service for Healthcare
What is a GLN?
The GLN is a unique thirteen-digit non-significant reference number used to identify:
- Legal entities such as registered companies
- Operational entities such as a specific department within a legal entity
- Physical entities such as a door of a warehouse or a particular room in a building
Global Location Numbers (GLNs) can be used to identify any location against which data needs to be captured in electronic systems. Some examples of this would include:
Physical locations
- A company's specific warehouse
- A specific dock with a warehouse
- A specific delivery location
- A put away location in a store or warehouse
- A specific shelf in a store
- An operating theatre
- A storage cabinet
Legal entities
- A whole company
- A division of a company
Operational entities
- A buying department at a Retailer
- The invoicing department at a Hospital
- The accounts department
- A nurse's station
- A hospital ward
- A price location
- A provider of data on the National Product Catalogue
Typically, details associated with the GLN, e.g. name and address, location type, contact persons, communications numbers, banking information, delivery requirements or restrictions, etc., are stored in database files for later retrieval
Although the GLN is strictly a reference key and does not carry any information on the location it identifies, it has a standard format and is structured to allow each GLN to be unambiguous and unique worldwide. The format of a GLN is a thirteen digit, fixed length numeric field, structured in the same way as a GTIN-13.
GLNs are mainly used in eMessaging to identify the sender and recipient of an electronic transmission and any party relevant to the transaction, e.g. buyer, seller, carrier etc. In addition within electronic messaging GLNs can identify locations that are relevant to the document being exchanged such as the “deliver to location” or the “price location”.
GLNs can also be used in barcode symbol format to identify a physical location or to encode the identification of relevant parties in logistic applications, e.g. “Ship-to” location number. The GS1-128 Barcode and the appropriate Application Identifier should be used according to the rules specified in the GS1 Australia User Manual - Numbering and Barcoding.
