Improving Scrap Processing Using Color On-Demand Labels

Located in Claremore, Oklahoma, Upco Inc. has the second largest factory in the world for the production of sucker rods. With a total capacity to produce over thirty million feet of sucker rods per year, Upco is the only domestic supplier of sucker rods owned by employees.  For those who don’t know, sucker rods join together the surface and downhole components of a reciprocating piston pump installed in an oil well.

To improve the efficiency of the plant, Upco required a system to identify quickly and easily the grade of steel scrap in their plant.  Having 7 or more different grades, employees were required to read black only labels which could create confusion and potential errors. 

To reduce the potent for errors, Barcodes, Inc. (http://www.barcodesinc.com/) of Chicago, IL recommended Upco purchase a TM-C3400 on-demand, color label printer as well as recommended media for their application.  To complete the solution, the Information Technology group in Upco wrote an application in Visual Basic to automatically select the correct color based on the grade of scrap and to print the label on the TM-C3400.

By adding a band of color, employees can easily identify the grade of scrap, saving time, reducing errors and saving money.   Upco created this simple, yet elegant color-based solution that works well for them.

And by recommending the TM-C3400 on-demand color label printer and getting me involved, Barcodes, Inc. has another satisfied customer.  

Talk to your customers about how adding color can improve their manufacturing processes.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670
info@colorlabelsolutions.com
www.colorlabelsolutions.com