School’s out… Where are your children?

A home services company based in France called A2micile (pronounced “à domicile”, litteraly, “at home” in English) recently introduced a barcode system called A2 Kids Alert that can be used to help keep track of young children when they are picked up or ride the bus at the end of each school day.

With the majority of cases of kidnapping in the developed world being the result of non-custodial relatives rather than strangers, making sure that only properly authorized persons can retrieve a child from school has become a steady source of concern for many schools. Schools recognize they have a major responsibility to ensure children’s safety and security as they leave the school grounds, but making sure only the right people can pick up a child, or even that each child boards the right bus, can be a confusing and time-intensive process for busy support staff. Enter the humble barcode…

By assigning a matching set of barcodes to each child as well as each authorized parent or caregiver, school systems can make it much easier for their staff to make sure each child leaves only with the authorized person or boards the correct bus.

The A2 Kids Alert, and similar systems that have been developed for educational applications, contains the three basic elements of any barcode data system – a barcode generator, one or more barcode readers, and the software to power the system. In the case of school children, barcodes can be produced on plastic key tags, as school ID badges that can be worn on clothing or on a lanyard, or even as a sticker that can be applied to a child’s school bag. Authorized parents and guardians will receive a matching code. A simple check-in procedure using a barcode reader can then be used, and the system also automatically creates a data trail.

In turn, school buses can be equipped with handheld or mounted barcode scanners that scan each child’s barcode as he or she boards the bus. If a child happens to step onto the wrong bus, the bus driver can quickly identify and correct the problem before the bus departs.

Would you consider using the barcode technology to track your children? Have you ever tried it? Tell us about it.

Don’t miss our upcoming blog post on unusual barcode uses: Oven grill meets barcode.

But certain companies are pushing the technology into exciting new areas, with the promise of even more to come. This post gives an overview of one of the many unusual and creative applications for barcode technology we have encountered lately and about which we’ll be talking about in upcoming posts. In this post, we’ve brewed some hot tasteful subject.

How do you take your coffee?

Many of us are already familiar with the single-cup coffee and tea brewing systems. The principle behind these is fairly simple… A small plastic cup or packet holds a fixed amount of flavoured or unflavoured coffee or tea. The loose material inside is surrounded by a small paper filter. The brewing unit is designed to make two small punctures in the brewing cup and force hot water through the filtered packet inside to fill a single-serving portion in the cup you place beneath the spout.

The Tassimo company recently took this by-now familiar idea a step further. Tassimo recognized the growing popularity of specialized coffee drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos as well as the fact that people want to be able to make such drinks at home but without the expense, inconvenience, or skill required to operate a dedicated machine. So, Tassimo created what it calls its “T-Disc” system that uses a barcode printed on the top of each individual brewing cup. The brewing machine is equipped with a barcode reader that scans the information on the T-Disc in order to know precisely how much water to dispense, for how long, and at what temperature.

The result is flexibility in drink choices with little need for planning and execution by the user. Everything from a small shot of espresso to a large café mocha that combines coffee and hot chocolate can be concocted by simply letting the brewing machine read the T-Disc barcodes and following simple instructions on the machine’s display screen. Thirsty yet?

Don’t miss our upcoming blog post on unusual barcode uses: Schoolchildren: checking in and out.

In order to verify that a shrink sleeve label was applied correctly, it should have the same appearance that it would have had if printed on a flat surface. Easy? Well, not exactly. The initial “sleeve” has a cylindrical shape regardless of the shape of the container that the sleeve will be applied to. So there is no standard recipe for “predeforming” the initial image. Each situation brings new challenges and a new distortion of an image that needs to be anticipated. The end objective, however, is always the same: guarantee accurate results that conform in every way to the visual identity of the product and its brand.

The sleeve application process requires a rather high level of expertise. Sleeve anamorphosis should be planned, calculated in a 3D environment, tested, adjusted, tested again. Although designers generally have access to specialised software programs, no error-proof calculations exist today that would work perfectly on the first try. But once the calculation phase successfully passed, the results are impressive.

Sleeves for an enhanced consumer experience

As you may notice on our microsite specially dedicated to sleeves, the quality of the printing is remarkable and the look on the whole of a sleeve-labeled product is highly superior to that of products with traditional labels.

Not only does the shrink sleeve offer a dynamic visual experience, the different types of films used also offer various textures that are perceptible to the touch. So not losing sight of the transformation of the image printed on the sleeve is essential. If unsure, we encourage you to contact one of our specialists here at IMS!

Have you had a bad experience because of anamorphosis? Have you seen sleeves where the final version seemed questionable because of the distortion of the image? Send us your comments and pictures.

We’re sure you’ve seen it though. When you have blood or other clinical tests done, the nursing staff have sheets of barcode stickers that correspond to you that they apply to the test tubes or papers that concern you. They enable a more secure link between the patient and the specimen or results.

Some institutions even use these codes to track patients. The handwritten bracelet we used to see has now been replaced by a bracelet with a barcode as well as the name.

Before you start feeling like a postal package, think about the fact that these codes guarantee the information concerning you stays intact and whole, thereby ensuring that two patients with the same name don’t get mixed up, as happened with the French patient whose baby was aborted by mistake.

In Quebec, where the chances of having the same name and date of birth as someone else are fairly high, I’m sure we’d all prefer to avoid the same sort of identity mix-up problems as Isabelle X (article in French) and others have experienced.

You also see barcodes used at the pharmacy. They encrypt the name of the drug, the batch number and the expiration date. In hospitals where there is a central pharmacy, and drugs are distributed by cart, barcodes and portable scanners ensure that patients and remedies are matched up correctly.

Another application, thought up by researchers at the University of Michigan, is with surgical instruments, especially swabs. The aim is to avoid leaving them inside patients. With a hand scanner, the swabs can be counted much more quickly and precisely than manually – especially when staff are tired from hours in the operating theatre – and the risk of losing some is therefore reduced. I don’t know whether I should be reassured by this new development, or worried by the fact that it’s needed!

Do you know any other less obvious applications of barcodes? Let us know below.

Whether you are planning to equip your facilities for the first time or renew an existing installation, you will want to consider the following:

• The scannability of your barcodes is essential

The barcodes you print hold more and more information and are processed by systems that are more and more sophisticated. High rates of unscannable codes are no longer acceptable.

• Scannability is highly dependent on the material you are printing on

The transparency of the material (called the substrate) and its capacity to receive ink affect the printing quality and thus the capacity of the barcode scanner to capture the information contained in your barcode.

Plastic, with its smooth surface, receives commonly used ink quite poorly. It requires a thicker ink and a longer drying time, and/or that the packaging avoids coming into contact with anything else so the printing doesn’t rub off. In the case of transparent or translucent plastics, the contrast isn’t always great enough to ensure the code can be scanned properly.

Corrugated cardboard is easier to print on, although its porosity, surface tension and the quality of the fibres used differ from box to box and cannot be controlled. The more variables there are, the more variance you will see in the scannability of your printed codes.

The surface of a paper label, however, is more homogenous, less porous and of more uniform quality.

• Production lines add variables

Packaging on a production line moves around a lot and – as continuity of production and cost considerations dictate – systems designed to convey with precision are rare. Your barcode application system must fit your existing installation or be adaptable.

Direct inkjet printing under the microscope

Printing barcodes directly by inkjet requires a flat surface to ensure maximum scannability and is therefore not suitable for all types of packaging. Also, codes printed on cardboard boxes have a higher rate of scan failure because the ink tends to run.

Direct inkjet is also not the best choice for flow production because the surface of the box will not always be at the same distance from the printhead, unless you invest in costly, high-precision conveyor systems. Consequently, the code may be distorted and difficult to scan.

The advantages of print and apply

A printed label can be applied to rounded or transparent surfaces and, with its high contrast level, can be easily scanned. In addition, application possibilities are greater: the application device can be configured to apply your label to the top or to the side of your packaging, as well as to the front or rear, or to both sides at the same time with a single label or with two labels, without significantly modifying your conveyor.

At IMS, we can help you make a well-informed choice by performing an onsite study for the installation of print-and-apply systems or barcode label applicators on your production line, according to your needs. We also offer an array of printers, as well as printers with a label presentation module to allow for manual label application.

In some cases, production procedures demand highly precise label application, such as when labelling tiny electronic parts without affecting their functioning. In nearly every other case, precision is still important, because a product with a misaligned label does not make the best impression on a potential buyer.

A well-designed label application system is versatile. It will allow your labels to be affixed to the side, or on opposite sides, on the top of the product or bottom, or even on a corner. For example, some of IMS’s equipment even offers labelling solutions for cylindrical containers – from wrapping stations, to heat shrink sleeve labelling, to holding systems equipped with imaging cameras for extremely precise positioning.

Other than the equipment set-up and operator training the main challenge about print-and-apply labelling equipment is coming up with the right solution. It requires both a strong knowledge of the application and peculiarities of its manufacturing processes, and a thorough knowledge of available label application equipment and how it can be adapted and integrated for various needs. It’s the latter that distinguishes a turn-key solution provider from a simple equipment reseller.

Are you facing a challenge with applying labels to your products? We welcome your questions and comments!

Quebec was the forerunner in the certification and labeling of organic products. “La Belle Province,” which demanded certification allowing a product to be labeled “organic” on February 1, 2000, was, until very recently, the only Canadian province to have any organic standards. The requirements of the Quebec Organic Reference Standard, now obsolete, are the fruits of the labor of the Conseil des appellations réservées et des termes valorisants (CARTV).

Since the advent of the Organic Products Regulations, a Canadian standard adopted on June 30, 2009, Quebec could only regulate those organic products made and sold in Quebec. Manufacturers in Quebec hoping to sell their organically-certified products outside of the province were also held to those Canadian standards.

The Canadian Organic Standards, administered by the Canada Organic Office which is part of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, has not only combined two certifications into one, but has also established agreements with several countries allowing for Canadian organic products to be sold around the world.

To be labeled as such, organic products must have been certified by one of about 20 accredited certification organisations whose name must appear on the label. For some organisations, the name will appear as a logo.

Today subject to federal regulation, Quebec companies that wish to promote the place of production of their organic products can nevertheless continue to use the BIOQuebec logo, obtained from the CARTV.

For further information regarding the labeling of organic products in Canada, please consult one of the websites below:

Conseil des appellations réservées et des termes valorisants

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

1. Matching label material to requirements.

First, the label’s facing, substrate, and adhesive must be matched to its requirements. As a business counting decades of experience in producing labels that stand up to the weather and the test of time, we know as a fact that speciality labels must be designed to match to every potential condition. Here are a few examples of extreme conditions and related label requirements, most of which IMS can provide you with.

When creating product brand identification, informational or functional labelling, including product serial numbers, warning labels, and industry certifications such as CSA®, UL®, companies rely on specially designed labels that resist both time and the elements. Resistance to elements are especially vital for products stored outdoors.

Assaults of the elements and repeated handling

When thinking of outdoor storage, one can think of a lumberyard, a garden center, a display of propane tanks or containers of motor oil. In all cases, the identification labels must withstand climatic elements and sometimes multiple handling, and still remain legible and securely attached to the product. The need for durable labels and the production equipment to apply them automatically or semi-automatically is much greater than most can imagine.

Consequently, IMS not only produces labels specially designed be long-lasting labels, but also provides a wide range of equipment to apply those labels automatically. These machines come from leading label applicator manufacturers such as Nita and AutoLabe.

Outdoor conditions…indoors

Many large warehouses and distribution centers are not climate-controlled. With loading bay doors often open, heating and air conditioning is useless. These environments experience peaks and extreme variations in temperature and humidity.

In addition, many products such as construction materials are often bundled, labelled and stored outside. Those labels must resist UV rays, direct rain, wind, and ice. Then you also have applications like refrigerated dairy operations, industrial deep freezers, and other cold storage.

Shrinkage: consequence of product label fail

Having a label fall off a pallet is more than an inconvenience – it can cause thousands of dollars in losses. In fact, in the distribution and retail industry, a sizable percentage of ongoing business losses are attributable to what is referred to as shrinkage.

Merchandise shrink is often due to items being misplaced or incorrectly accounted for somewhere along the supply chain or during storage and stocking. That’s why proper product identification is vital. Companies can’t afford to have dozens of products stored on a pallet and then let that pallet lose its identification.

To address this particular need, IMS offers print-and-apply labelling machines which are particularly well suited to coding pallets in a production environment, some of which are of the most hostile kind. Applicators from leading manufacturers, such as AutoLabe and Nita, designed for durable label application, are also offered by IMS. To take a look at our catalog, please visit the “Equipment” section of our website or contact one of our representatives by phone at 1-888-336-3213.

Developing and making extreme-temperature durable labels is a two-fold task. I will be talking more about that in a later post. Stay tuned!

Given over two decades of use at retail cash registers, everyone is familiar with the barcode and how it works. But barcodes do much more than tell a cash register the cost of an item. In most retail operations, product barcodes are also tied to a computerized inventory tracking system. So, if the store has 12 boxes of a certain cereal on the shelf, and six more in the stock room, that information is retrieved by the barcode. When a certain quantity has been sold, it can trigger a reorder.

On a production line, barcodes can do much more than that. A barcode can be fixed to both the finished product and to its component parts. Imagine a total of 10 different parts must be assembled to build a completed piece. Assigning barcodes to each piece and to the whole can make the entire process run much more efficiently and make traceability an easy task.

Assembly line operators (or in some cases industrial robots) will scan the barcode on each component as they use it. So, for example, if a parts bin that holds 100 identical components gets down to only 25 components remaining in the bin, the 76^th time that code is scanned on the assembly line it can trigger a request of another bin containing 100 parts to be pulled from inventory and brought to the line. In turn, it can also trigger the reorder of another full bin to replenish the inventory. This is particularly useful for JIT (Just In Time) inventory systems typically seen in lean manufacturing operations. The idea is to limit the amount of parts stored in inventory and order on an “as needed” basis.

Not only can each component part be coded in this way, a separate barcode can be assigned to the overall product as it moves down the line and be tracked all the way down. This can provide a manufacturing operation with a wealth of information as it relates to productivity and quality control.

Such systems typically utilize three parts: a printer to produce the barcode labels, barcode readers to scan the labels, and the software to run the system. At IMS, we can help with each of these, and help you make your product management chain a true success.

Usually, the secret to making these systems deliver on their promise lies in the software component. That is why it is important to find a supplier that can work with the software packages you select. Proper setup and configuration is the key to optimal performance, but that is best left as the subject of a future post.

What is your experience with industrial barcode systems? Or, are you now considering such a system for the first time? Let us know. We welcome your comments and questions.