Manufacturers experience production downtime due to labelling disruptions

Loftware, one of the global leaders in enterprise labelling solutions, has released a report uncovering the challenges manufacturing professionals face when it comes to barcode labelling in a global supply chain.

The findings show how poorly equipped manufacturers are to handle today’s labelling challenges, revealing that nearly half of those polled are experiencing significant and costly disruption to their manufacturing process due to their existing labelling method.

The survey, which polled approximately 175 professionals from global companies, also showed 84 per cent of respondents said meeting customer specific requirements was the single most challenging aspect of labelling today. When asked what other requirements organisations found to be the most difficult to meet, almost 75 per cent of all respondents listed product specific requirements and nearly 45 per cent stated label print speed.

“One of the rising challenges for most manufacturing organisations, especially those with complex supply chains, is how to manage barcode labelling on an enterprise level to ensure supply chain accuracy, speed, and cost effectiveness,” stated Josh Roffman, Loftware vice president of product management. “The cost of not reassessing the demands of labelling in the “new” supply chain is very high.

“Mislabelling, inefficient offline labelling processes, a myriad of redundant and unnecessary label designs, and poor integration of multiple labelling data sources add up to wasted labour resources, customer fines, returns, delayed shipments, and ultimately loss of business,” he added.

The need to address print speed is apparent, with 92 per cent of survey respondents reporting that they must interrupt their operations to reprint labels, with half saying this is due to incorrect label data. Additionally, over half said they are still generating labels through manual processes, making it difficult to address variability in labelling. When asked what type of “negative consequences” their company has experienced for “inadequately labeled or mislabeled products,” participants showed that over 43 per cent faced customer related issues such as dissatisfaction and loss of business.

A copy of the full report can be obtained here.

Loftware offers comprehensive labelling solutions, through enterprise software and other applications to produce mission-critical barcode labels, documents, and RFID Smart tags across the supply chain.