Marco Specialties, Inc. http://www.marcospec.com/ was founded in 1985 with one mission: provide pinball machine owners one source for Everything Pinball.
Online
since 1999, Marco has since grown to offer over 30,000 individual parts for
thousands of games to customers around the world. With thousands of rare parts,
large inventories of common parts, next-day fulfillment, and unmatched customer
service, Marco continues to raise the bar for the pinball industry. Customers
return to Marco again and again thanks to the industry’s largest database of
pinball parts carefully matched to individual games.
With so
many parts and SKU’s, Marco Specialties required a solution to print labels on-demand
for two different applications. First
and most importantly, Marco wanted to produce color labels with images of their
products. What made this project
interesting was the initial products were coils that required labels which can
withstand temperatures of up to 170 degrees F.
Second,
Marco wanted a system to improve their picking and reduce the probably of
errors. With so many parts, it was easy
to pull the incorrect part number. For an
example of this issue, look at the label for one size of pinball and screw
below.
The first
label shows a variety of pinballs, pointing out the specific one to pick. The second identifies the specific screw to
pick out of potentially hundreds of similar parts.
According
to Paul, “The poly labels for the coils
project are working well. They look
great and are very durable. While a bit more expensive, the poly labels seem
worth the added cost.”
For the picking
solution, Paul is still looking for less expensive media that provides good
barcode quality. Since speaking to Paul,
I have suggested some other media to test.
Companies such as
Marco Specialties are really perfect customers for on-demand color labels. With so many part numbers, it is very
difficult to use preprinted labels without maintaining an inventory of a large
number of labels. Further, images on
labels help employees and distribution use, manage and sell the products. And it helps end users select the correct
products to meet their requirements.
Color on-demand labels are a win-win-win for everyone involved in the
supply chain.
If you have customers
with a large number of SKU’s, speak to them about moving to on-demand color
labels. Although you may not become a "Pinball Wizard", but you could become a "Wizard" for valuable, new solutions.
Guy Mikel
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