Retail Update for On-Demand Color Labels

Retail Pro® completed this week the certification of the TM-C3400 ColorWorks printer for use with their Retail Pro v9 to produce on-demand color labels and tags.  

If you don’t know, for over 20 years Retail Pro®, http://www.retailpro.com, has been providing specialty retailers with cost-effective, robust and extremely agile retail management solutions.  It is now a leading international point of sale and retail management software provider recognized for the flexibility and scalability of its products, as well as globally local support delivered through an extensive network of business partners with over 90 offices across the globe. Retail Pro’s solutions manage billions of transactions annually in more than 52,000 store locations worldwide, in 84 countries, and 18 different languages.

According to Les Moss, Technical Support Engineer, “the setup was very easy.  In addition, the TM-C3400 prints labels with gaps or on a continuous roll very well.  In addition, the barcodes printed by the TM-C3400 scanned with no problem also.”

With the document designed in Retail Pro, retailers can create labels and tags; and then print them as required, eliminating preprinted label inventory and simplifying their work processes.   Talk to your retail customers about using Retail Pro for on-demand color labels and tags.

Guy Mikel

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

Bake Sweet Success!

Do you have customers such as bakeries using preprinted labels like the ones in the pictures below?

Then you have a great opportunity!

“When I saw all of these preprinted labels, I thought of you and the TM-C3400” says Ross Check of Heartland Label Printers.

Thanks to Ross, I visited a bakery using over 1,000 preprinted labels a day.  If you don’t know, Heartland Label Printers Inc. was founded in 1990 with the goal of manufacturing quality stock and custom printed labels. Since the founding, Heartland has grown into a nationally recognized company shipping labels through a broad spectrum of resellers to all points of the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.  Recognized as one of the fastest growing privately owned companies in Wisconsin, Heartland’s goal is to provide customers the finest label media possible, great value, and timely service.

http://www.hrtlp.com/contentPages/index.aspx

What is interesting about this bakery was the current process to label products.  With hundreds of different bake goods, each product required a label with a logo; either their own brand or one of the many OEM customer’s brands. In addition, each of the products required a label with the list of ingredients regardless of the brand.  Finally, many of their products required a “best when used by” date label.  With up to 3 labels for each of their products, the baker spends a great deal of labor applying labels to each of their products.  In addition, it is easy to make mistakes when applying up to 3 different labels on hundreds of similar products.

To speed up their labeling process, reduce potential errors and reduce costs, Ross recommended the baker begin printing color labels on-demand using the TM-C3400.  As they already use Bartender from Seagull Scientific,

http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/bar-code-label-software.aspx

the baker can create new label formats easily for each of their various SKU’s.  Then, the operator can print from Bartender exactly the one label required for each product on their work orders.  “With orders coming 24 hours per day, it is important for this baker to print and ship as fast as possible.  Also, the bakery will now have a potential new profit center; offering private branding to their entire customer base of grocery stores, restaurants, and other bakeries” says Ross.

If you have bakers or other customers with lots of products, be sure to talk to them about on-demand color labels.  Bake Sweet Successes for your customers and you!

Guy Mikel

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

The Perfect Manufacturing Prospect

This week, I met a perfect manufacturing prospect thanks to John Cook of Premier Electronics http://www.premierelectronics.com/ .  Premier Electronics is a supplier of leading edge technology solutions, providing barcode scanners and printers, RFID, warehouse management systems (WMS), data collection, asset tracking and inventory control devices.  This prospect shows how VAR’s like Premier can sell a variety of solutions to manufacturers; you just need to show them ideas on how color labels will benefit their operation.

With John, I met a parts manufacturer who provides OEM parts to the major vehicle companies as well as store brands to auto part retailers.  Because of these various channels, this manufacturer labels the identical part number with more than 10 different brands.

Currently, this manufacturer picks the products, moves them to a location to print a preprinted label with variable data and then packs the parts for shipping.  

As this process is cumbersome, involves handing the same item several times and requires a large inventory of labels, the manufacturer wants to move to a mobile, on-demand process.  They want to begin using power carts, handheld computers and the TM-C3400 label printers to produce and place color labels on the parts during the picking process.

By moving to a mobile, on-demand color labeling process, John Cook says “the manufacturer will save labor, reduce potential labeling mistakes, reduce inventory and improve their overall labeling and shipping process”.  Overall, the new process will save them a significant amount of money.”

During our discussion, something else occurred that I wanted to share with you.  While on the call, I referred to the Tubelite success story and how this manufacturer improved their shipping process.  If you have not seen this story, contact me!

In addition, I reviewed to the results from P.I. Components to improve their shipping process.  Please see the earlier blog post on this end user.

After this discussion, the manufacturer began brainstorming how color could improve their shipping processes also.  Currently, they print black-only text shipping labels.  Although they have a limited number of miss shipments, sometimes the manufacturer stages pallets incorrectly, that could get loaded on the wrong trailer.  By using color to stage pallets, this prospect could insure all pallets are staged and loaded correctly.

In addition, this manufacturer uses a variety of freight companies who cross dock pallets.  By adding color, the prospect believes their freight suppliers may improve their internal cross docking process, reducing errors and improving delivery accuracy.

Based on the results with this manufacturing prospect, be sure to discuss on-demand color for improving not only manufacturing processes, but also for improving logistic processes as well.  You can help your customers with an innovative new solution; and help your business as well.

Guy Mikel

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

Pharmacies; Clean Rooms Required!

I thought you may find the enclosed press release of interest.  The TM-C3400 was initially targeted at healthcare with pharmacies one of the important customers.  By suggesting on-demand, color labels, you can help your healthcare customers with a totally new solution.

EPSON ON-DEMAND COLOR PRINTER IDEALLY SUITED FOR STERILE

COMPOUNDING ENVIRONMENTS

New Orleans, LA, December 4, 2011 – Epson America, Inc., a leading global supplier of inkjet printing technology, announced today at The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (AHSP) Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition that its SecurColor™ on-demand inkjet label printer is an ideal solution for hospital pharmacies looking to implement accurate and cost effective color labels for unit dose, syringe and IV bag labeling. With a low particle-generating printer such as Epson’s SecurColor, hospital pharmacies can continue to comply with USP 797 standards -- which require compounded sterile preparations (CSPs) to be formulated inside laminar flow workstations within clean rooms -- while also improving patient care and minimizing the risk of human error.

“The use of color-on-demand label printing is on the rise in healthcare facilities nationwide,” commented Tom Kettell, Strategic Business Manager, Emerging Markets, Epson Business Systems Division. “When used strategically, color can make a significant difference to ensure the right medication in the right dose at the right time to the right patient. This product can be utilized even in stringent healthcare environments, and it can improve patient care significantly.”

Testing of a SecurColor printer was conducted by Controlled Environment Consulting at the Baxa STAR Center^®, to determine the amount of particulate contamination generated by printer operation. ISO Class 7 limits the particulate counts to less than 352,000 particles per cubic meter (10,000 particles per cubic foot (ppcf)).  The test results showed that the relatively low level counts generated by the printer did not elevate the background room particulate level to exceed ISO Class 7 limits.*

Guy Mikel

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

*The testing was conducted by James Wagner, President of Controlled Environment Consulting, in September 2011. The STAR Center is a stand-alone pharmacy process and environmental controls training facility located at the Baxa Corporation headquarters in Englewood, Colorado.