Survey Underscores Your Manufacturing IT Clients' Need For Efficient Bar Code Labeling Solution

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

According to a study of global companies, manufacturers are poorly equipped to handle labeling challenges, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and loss of revenue.

The survey of 175 companies conducted by Loftware found a lack of an effective bar code labeling solution in the supply chain can create disruption that lead 47 percent of respondents to experience production downtime.

“The cost of not reassessing the demands of labeling in the ‘new’ supply chain is very high. Mislabeling, inefficient offline labeling processes, a myriad of redundant and unnecessary label designs, and poor integration of multiple labeling data sources add up to wasted labor resources, customer fines, returns, delayed shipments, and ultimately loss of business,” Josh Roffman, Loftware Vice President of Product Management, said in a press release.

The study revealed that meeting specific customer requirements was the leading challenge of labeling today (cited by 84 percent of respondents), followed by product specific requirements (75 percent), and label print speed (45 percent). In addition, 92 percent of survey respondents indicated that they have to interrupt operations to reprint labels, half of which are due to incorrect label data. And 55 percent reported that they still generate labels via manual processes, which makes it more difficult to address variability in the process. More than 43 percent reported that inadequately or mislabeled products have resulted in customer dissatisfaction and/or loss of business, affecting their company’s bottom line.

Understanding these challenges can help frame the next conversation you have with your manufacturing IT clients about the challenges they are facing and how the solutions you provide can help.