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Sunday, October 25, 2020

Creating Label Art

Hawaii Food Products, https://www.hawaiifoodproducts.com/ , has been operating since 1955 and is a long-time kama'aina (a word describing Hawaii residents regardless of their racial background, as opposed to "kanaka" which means a person of Native Hawaiian ancestry) company with roots in the local farming community.  This company delivers the favorite Hawaiian food products in a ready-to-eat format under the Ono Ono brand. From Lau Lau and Kalua Pork to Lechon, Char Siu, and Lomi Salmon, Hawaii Food Products has it all.

Hawaii Food Products Logo
Hawaii Food Products Logo

In 2019, Hawaii Food Products became affiliated with KOHA Foods. Their goals is to perpetuate quality, customer service, and responsible growth by employing local people who manufacture local foods grown at our farm and various local farmers. 

Brian Watanabe of Hawaii Food Products contacted us as they wanted to begin producing their own labels.  According to Brian, “To get the label costs down, we had to purchase 100,000 labels for each product.  Once we had the labels, we couldn’t make the changes required in our production process.  We needed flexibility and the ability to make changes on the fly.”

Continuing, Brian says, “For example, if we use Hunts Tomato sauce in a product and are forced to move to Del Monte Tomato sauce, we may need to change the ingredients on our label.  If we don’t, the FDA could easily tag our products.  On-Demand printing of our labels make these type of ingredient changes easy to do.”

Based on our discussions, Hawaii Food Products purchased a C6000A printer and a variety of label sizes.  The C6000A offers high print quality and is affordable, reliable and durable.  I’ve written extensively on this new printer:

First Post: Introduction to the C6000 Series






SITA is great. If the printer needs repair, Epson ships a replacement overnight.  We recommend SITA when label printing becomes a critical path to production.


With the purchase of the C6000, the next step was artwork.  According to Brian, “we can’t do everything ourselves.  Therefore, we need partners to help create the artwork; including redoing the logo’s.  With their expertise in labelling, we asked Color Label Solutions for assistance with artwork creation.”

With this request, our graphic artist Tony Molina stepped up and started working with Hawaii Food Products.  According to Tony, “initially, my goal was to build continuity into the label designs; with the use of colors and logos.  With new label projects, we need all of the original label elements to complete the project.  Many customers, however, don’t have the original artwork; therefore, we have to recreate them.  In this situation, I needed to recreate the logos (palm trees, etc.) from scratch which was the most difficult aspect of the project.

 
Hawaii Food Products Icon
Hawaii Food Products Icon

Continuing, Tony says, “Once I had the logos, I worked on the other static aspects of the label; such as the US Inspected circle.  Completing the first label takes the longest as all of these items are required.  After the first, the follow-on labels take much less time.”

Hawaii Food Products Label Art
Hawaii Food Products Label Art

In this project, Tony was asked to recreate the company mascot as well.  From the original hand drawing:


Hawaii Food Products Mascot Draft
Hawaii Food Products Mascot Draft


Tony created this mascot option:

Hawaii Food Mascot
Hawaii Food Products Mascot

and placed it on a label for Hawaii Foods:

Hawaii Food Products Art
Hawaii Food Products Art

Once the project was completed, Tony sent all of the original files to Hawaii Foods; a practice many or most graphic artists don’t follow.  We want to continue to earn our customer’s business; and not force companies to purchase from us by withholding original art.

Brian says “Tony did a good job on the labels; and just in time for a new shipment of Pasteles!  No way could I have done this artwork creation myself.  I’m unloading trucks, arranging our warehouse, creating new products; I don’t have the luxury for this type of work.  We need partners like Tony; and the price was worth the time I saved.”

As I have “ZERO” skills in the area of label design, I appreciate Tony’s capabilities.  If you need assistance with your label artwork, please contact us.  We can help with not only label production; but label creation as well.

Guy Mikel
855-962-7670

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

C7500 Plugged Nozzles

Plugged nozzles are the mostly likely service issue we’ve experienced with the C7500 or C7500G printer. 

C7500 Nozzle Check
C7500 Nozzle Check

When this issue occurs in the C7500, generally, I recommend first a manual cleaning.  To clean the nozzles on the C7500, use the right arrow on the front panel to select Menu, then the down arrow to select Maintenance and then select Manual Head Cleaning.  Or you can go into the driver to select Manual Head Cleaning as well.

C7500 with Rewinder
C7500 with Rewinder



If the manual cleaning doesn’t work, I sometimes recommend “Ink Recharge” selection from the Maintenance menu in the LED Operator Panel.  Ink Recharge forces ink into and through the printhead to eliminate any air in the ink lines.  Epson has told me that air in the lines can create similar missing dots.

Nozzle Check Setting
Nozzle Check Setting

Also, I’ve recommend disabling the auto cleaning function to see if the printer can “print through” the plugged nozzle problem.  I’ve seen nozzles clear up by printing.
 
If the manual cleaning and ink recharge doesn’t work, the next option has been to contact Epson Advance Technical support for service on the printhead.  This service involved shipping the printer to Indianapolis or getting service on-site by a third party.  Now, we have another option to eliminate plugged nozzles.
 
General Data Service
General Data Service

General Data Service Department offers now a remote tool that may be able to unplug nozzles and improve print performance.  According to Bradley Whited, Technical Support for General Data, “Specifically for Epson printers we have been provided with a tool that assists with our depot repairs to make fine adjustments to the printer after any hardware replacements. This tool does include a function that can force a harder cleaning on the printer to try and clear clogged nozzles. In order to do complete this work, we connect remotely, install the tool, run the cleaning, and then uninstall the tool before disconnecting.”  Although we’ve sold hundreds of the C7500 printers, I didn’t know this capability exists.
 
GDC Service Team
GDC Service Team

When asked about training on the C7500, Bradley said, “We actually have 2 technicians in the depot including myself that have gone to Epson’s repair center in Indiana for certification on the Epson C3500 and C7500 printers.  In addition, we’ve trained other depot technicians; including one in California.  Overall, General Data has experience working on Epson label printers as well as from all major manufacturers. We are able to service all types of printers including thermal, line, laser, and solid ink as well as copiers and scanners.”
 
GDC Service Fleet
GDC Service Fleet
After hearing about the remote possibility to clear up plugged nozzles, I asked Bradley, when should you not use the remote capabilities.  Bradley said, “Remote service cannot assist with any issues determined to be hardware related.”  If hardware is the problem, General Data offers Return to Depot service or even On-Site service if the customer is local to a trained GDC technician.  Continuing, Bradley adds, “GDC is partnered with Epson and are able to get OEM parts to use in our repairs.”
 
If you have plugged nozzles, we charge $140 per incident currently to use the remote tool to unplug C7500 nozzles. 
 
According to Dennis Moore, Regional Service Representative for Epson, “The advanced cleaning tool is a last resort option for clearing nozzles on a C7500 or C7500G.  It is a valid option/utility before resorting to on-site or return to depot service.”
 
It’s great to hear that we now have another tool to help our customers with potential issues with C7500 printers.  Contact us if we can help.
 
Guy Mikel
855-962-7670
info@colorlabelsolutions.com