Repeatable Education Solution

Western Suffolk BOCES (http://www.wsboces.org/), a regional educational service agency, provides quality, efficient, shared programs and services to school districts, their students, parents and communities.  Today 37 BOCES in New York serve 721 school districts.  As one of three BOCES on Long Island, Western Suffolk BOCES provides 70 services to school districts more economically and efficiently than one district alone can provide. Western Suffolk BOCES helps school-age children and adults gain the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the workplace.

The school districts serviced by Western Suffolk BOCES needed a system to track and verify the student’s medicines.  As a policy, the district requires that no student shall be permitted to bring onto the grounds of the school or carry on his/her person any prescription or non-prescription medication.  The parent must deliver the medicine directly to the Health Office in a properly labeled original container.

According to Helen Welcome, technology support for Western Suffolk BOCES, “we wanted a system to print pictures as well as verifying information on labels to insure the correct medicine was given to each student.  To meet this goal, we use ID Flow from Jolly Technology and the TM-C3400."    ID Flow (http://www.jollytech.com/photo-id-card/) offers design tools typically found only in professional graphic design suites and unmatched by any other ID card software.  “The ID label solution is working well at nine of schools”, says Helen. 

After using the solution for some time, Western Suffolk started having issues with the printers consuming too much ink.  According to Tom Strata, Technology Support for Western Suffolk BOCES, “we had a printer at one of our schools that printed only approximately 20 labels before the ink light started flashing.  With printing only 20 labels, we assumed something was wrong with the printer.”

When I first spoke with Tom, I assumed as well that something was wrong with the printer.  However, only the ink light was flashing.  Based on this warning light, I had Tom update the firmware and driver for the printer.  Once updated, Tom found a new cartridge which allowed us to confirm the printer was still working.

According to Tom, this printer was used sparingly, printing only a few labels per week. At another school, the printer was working well, producing a significant number of labels.  In low print volume situations, the TM-C3400 can consume more ink conducting periodic cleaning than actually printing.  For these situations, the TM-C3400 has an economy mode driver setting.

To set up the printer for economy mode, go the Maintenance & Utility tab in the TM-C3400 driver and select Post Printing Verification on the top left of the page:

Select “Next” in the Post Printing Verification dialog box:

And then select Economy Mode for low print volume:

In low print situations, this setting will increase yields and save lots of ink.  If you or your customers are printing more than approximately 50 labels per day, then keep the setting at the default, Anti-Missing Read Mode.  The yield advantage is eliminated at approximately 50 labels.

Western Suffock BOCES developed a great solution to insure their students received the correct medicine.  In the USA, we have 13,809 public school districts and 28,220 private schools.  If you have one of these schools as customers, talk to them about using this type of verification solution for their student’s medicines.   

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

New Solutions For Datalogic Partners

With products used in over a third of the world’s checkouts, airports and mail sorting offices, Datalogic (http://www.datalogic.com/)  is in a unique position to deliver solutions that makes life easier and more efficient for people.  Their core specialties are Automatic Data Capture and Industrial Automation for the manufacturing, retail, logistics and healthcare industries.  As a total solutions provider, Datalogic has a long history of creating innovative bar code readers, data collection mobile computers and vision systems that meet the ever-changing demands of industry. 

From May 13 to 15, 2013, I was invited to attend and present at the Datalogic Partner Conference in San Antonio Texas by Rodney Shaffer, the Epson Product Manager for BlueStar and Jean Secrist, Channel Manager for Datalogic.  According to Jean, “we wanted to invite companies with complementary products to present at our partner conference.  At our previous partner conferences, we had presentations covering only Datalogic products.  By listening, we found that showcasing entire solutions is more valuable for our partners at these meetings.  It is important to us that our partners sell more valuable and better solutions to their customers; and to make them a success. ”

During the conference, Datalogic presented several new and interesting solutions, including Joya (http://www.joya.datalogic.com/shopevolution.html) and Lanehawk (http://www.evoretail.com/).  As an impatient shopper, personally I love these types of new checkout options.

Prior to the conference, I asked Rodney, why did you want to attend the Datalogic meeting?  Rodney responded, “I felt this conference would give us access to new potential partners for print on-demand color labels.”  And it seems that is exactly what we found as I met several new potential resellers of this technology; especially during the product showcase:

Not only did I meet new partners, I met several people from companies already selling print on-demand color label solutions.

Not only fortunate to attend, I had the opportunity to present 4 times; twice in ADIC sessions and twice in retail sessions.  To review my two presentations, go to my Linked In profile and look in the summary section: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=3035206&trk=hb_tab_pro_top .  Even if you have seen my presentations before, check to see if you can find a couple of new applications that I presented during the Datalogic conference!

When the meetings were finished, I had the opportunity to explore the Riverwalk in San Antonio with several of the Datalogic partners:

After attending this event, I’m very grateful for the opportunity to attend and present to Datalogic’s partners; and to be a part of their desire to help their partners grow and prosper. 

Guy Mikel

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

GHS Made Easy

3E Company (www.3ecompany.com), a member of the Verisk Analytics Family of Companies,  offers a comprehensive suite of data products and information services that enables improved compliance with global Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) requirements related to the safe manufacturing, distribution, transportation, usage and disposal of chemicals.  3E Company's core competence is researching, sourcing, aggregating, enriching and maintaining EH&S compliance related data and making it available to their customers in a format that is easy and practical to use.

Recently, Lauren Smith, Manufacturing Account Manager for 3E, contacted me to discuss a customer wanting information on printing GHS labels.  During the conversation, I asked Lauren, how does your customer want to print the labels?  Lauren responded, “This customer uses our SDS Authoring Service to create their GHS labels.  With this service, 3E will send up-to-date PDF’s of their GHS labels to print and apply on their products”. 

After our call, Lauren connected me with Jenny Bingham in Marketing for 3E Company.  According to Jenny, “3E offers a broad suite of outsourced services, including SDS and Label Authoring (http://3ecompany.com/products-services/msds-authoring/msds-authoring-services/).  These services can be tailored to an individual company’s needs. We provide GHS classification of substances and mixtures as a separate service or as a part of SDS's and label authoring for companies that need GHS classifications. 3E Company can also author SDSs in compliance with GHS requirements for the specific country or region that has adopted GHS.”

Jenny continues, “If a chemical manufacturer wants to create their own GHS compliant labels, 3E offers Ariel WebInsght™.   Ariel WebInsight™ online chemical regulatory compliance reference tool provides quick access to official GHS classifications, including substance classifications published by the Japanese, European, Korean, Taiwanese, and New Zealand authorities. This online tool features an innovative GHS mixture classification module, multilingual GHS labels, overviews and the full text of national GHS implementations, and a robust phrase library with GHS hazard and precautionary statements in more than 30 languages.”

“In addition,” says Jenny, “we offer GHS training for companies needing additional assistance learning about and conforming to GHS. Available training courses include general training on the implementation of GHS in specific countries around the globe, actual classification training, exploring the impact on MSDS's, and examining how new hazard communication and classification requirements impact a company’s business processes.”

After my discussions with Lauren and Jenny, I believe the service offered by 3E makes GHS compliance easy.  All a chemical manufacturer needs to build a complete GHS solution is the 3E’s Label Authoring Service, Epson printers and Epson BS5609 approved poly labels.

If you want to learn more about GHS, you may find my earlier posts of interest:

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-h-is-ghs-opportunity.html (Basic GHS review)

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/bs5609-is-no-bs.html (BS5609 Certification)

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/02/chemistry-opportunity.html (Octochem)

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/02/un-drives-print-on-demand-color-label.html (Oakwood Products)

If you or your customers want to create and use GHS labels easily, contact me to discuss how 3E and I can work together to build you an easy-to-use solution.

Guy Mikel

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

#GHSLABELS