The loss or deterioration of product identification or warning labels can be like losing all your ID’s while travelling in a foreign country: nightmare.
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!
