A Large Electrical Equipment Manufacturer
The customer manufactures large generators. Multiple safety and warning labels are required to be placed on each generator. As the generator is assembled, it travels down an assembly line. Adding safety and warning labels are a part of this assembly line process. When it came to adding the labels, an employee would have to walk over to their inventory of labels and find the right label to put on the right spot of the generator, which would be time consuming. The inventory of labels was not well organized. There were times when a label was not found, or unbeknownst to the employee, was out of stock. When this happened, production was shut down. The labels were required to be on the generators, so production was often on hold until new labels were ordered. In retrospect, a $10,000 generator was on hold due to a label being out of stock that costs a only a few cents.
The solution we provided to the customer was to create a label kit, which helped to mistake proof their assembly line process. Label kits are a group of parts and/or sets, not necessarily printed on the same material, produced together and packaged together. All of the labels that were required to be put on the generator, were now printed on one sheet; making them easy to find, easy to access and easy to know when they needed to be re-ordered. The label kit ended up being very large; 2 feet by 2 feet.
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The customer put the label kit in a plastic sleeve and hung it on a line above the generator assembly line. When a certain label was needed, an employee would pull the kit out of the sleeve, peel the label off, and put it on the generator. The label kit would be moved down to the next station where another label was needed and the process was continued until all of the labels were placed on the generator. By utilizing this label kit, the customer was able to save time and effort, as well as avoid costly shutdowns due to not having the proper labels in stock.
For labels that are used on the same piece of equipment, ordering them as a kit offers several advantages. By combining like parts (same material and adhesive) together and running them through production on a common sheet, we can reduce production and tooling costs and lower unit prices per label. Our label kits are made using an array of materials, finishes and adhesives, as well as unlimited color choices. They can be any size or shape. We also offer variable data printing with our kits, including serialization and multi-lingual applications.
