Trends in product identification

by Neal Magaziner

Today, business customers are driving a hurricane of change in response to the demands they are facing in their own businesses. This is impacting every aspect of the supply chain, from order taking to material handling to shipping, packaging and customer support. 

Product identification — the labeling, classification and inventory control of products, packages and containers — is right in the eye of the storm.

Several trends are driving this change. Each is important to understand, and several are interrelated.

The retail revolution
There’s no question, the Home Depots, Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world drive retail. And, why not? With low prices and astonishing selection, customers flock to them. With the volumes they generate, suppliers line up just for a crack at a few coveted inches of shelf facing. The result? These industry leaders can call the tune, right down to how suppliers present their wares at the receiving dock. They’re demanding labeling that not only identifies contents, but also the date and place of manufacture, materials information and more — all human and machine-readable (using their proprietary back-end systems, of course). Miss a detail, and the entire lot could be shipped back, on the supplier’s dime.

Food and pharmaceuticals
Three simple letters strike fear in the heart of any food or drug manufacturer: FDA. The  Food and Drug Administration has and uses wide-ranging powers to audit manufacturing practices, labeling standards and product freshness, comprehensive information which must be reflected in the product’s product and shipping labels. With ISO-9002, Six Sigma and other quality standards, many other industries feel the same pressure to produce and identify to almost superhuman quality and traceability standards. The bottom line is increased costs to manufacturers.

Product recalls
With the amazing proliferation of consumer and commercial products in today’s marketplace, recalls are still an unfortunate but normal part of doing business. The trick is to minimize disruption when they happen. Tightly monitored manufacturing practices, combined with clear product identification can mean the difference between creating headlines with the panic of a mass recall (does anybody remember Tylenol?), and quietly contacting only the affected customers, regions or retailers.

September 11
Yes, this tragic incident, and the anthrax scare that followed had consequences in the packaging and product identification industry. Never has sensitivity run so high in the United States over food contamination, package contents or a parcel’s point of origin. Protective packaging tools like tamper-evident tape are finding their way into all sorts of products and industries.

So, what’s available to help your shipping and packaging operations meet the challenges of competition, regulation, technological innovation and consumer demand, all while saving cost and protecting margins? Here are a few that we find particularly exciting.

Side/top label
3M’s newest innovation is a fully automatic "Next Label Out" System that prints varying information on a tape label applied to the side or top of a container. A company can eliminate lead times and inventories associated with traditional pre-printed labels.

Corner label applicators
With throughput of up to 20 cases per minute, these machines can print a high-quality image and bar code onto adhesive tape. The advantages of this process include: no liner waste, more exact label placement, varying label lengths, and improved bar code scanning.

New-generation ink jet printers
Used mostly for human-readable applications, ink jet printers can inexpensively apply basic identification information onto generic packaging material. Companies such as food or pharmaceutical manufacturers who produce large amounts of similar goods (for example, Heinz makes more than a dozen varieties of pickles, all in the same jar) can now buy standardized boxes from their corrugated supplier. It may not seem like much, but there’s a big cost difference between buying 100,000 each of 10 slightly-different printed boxes, and 1 million identical unprinted ones.

Portable bar code scanners
For receiving departments that process hundreds or thousands of shipments daily, speed and flexibility are primary concerns. Cobra makes two particularly interesting options. First, there’s LS-1900 hand-held scanner series — a low-cost unit that offers high data capture accuracy, two-color LED, adjustable beeper volume (for audible confirmation) and easy connectivity. There’s also the SRS-1, a wearable "ring scanner." Picture a large college class ring with a wire, and you’ve got it. With a low profile of less than a half-inch and weighing around 20gm (less than an ounce), it allows users to pick, scan and pack in even the tightest spaces. These miniature systems have found applications in everything from pick-and-pack operations to concert admittance and ski lift ticket scanning.

So, what’s in store for the future of product identification? Market forces and world events will determine that. But, it’s a safe bet that profit margins will continue to come under attack as retail channels keep driving the supply chain and quality/regulatory standards tighten further.

Manufacturers and distributors will have to respond if they hope to compete. Accordingly, new and innovative packaging, labeling and automation solutions are already being developed to help suppliers manage the one side of the equation they can control: the cost side.

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