Reducing Production costs, SKUs & Waste Through Efficient Coding & Marking Techniques

Reducing Production costs, SKUs & Waste Through Efficient Coding & Marking TechniquesJason Remnant – Linx Product Manager

Today’s challenges Customer

Internal Requirements

Reliability

Line Efficiency

Ease of process

Legislation

Regulatory

Waste targets

Content driven by:

Consumer Marketing Legislation

Functional

Code integrity

Durability

Supply Chain

Overall Equipment Effectiveness

• Reducing production costs, stock keeping units and waste through efficient processes can also be captured in the more common terminology of Overall Equipment Effectiveness or (O.E.E.)

• The 3 most common categories of manufacturing productivity losses are:

– Availability– Performance– Quality

• OEE combines these into one score that provides a complete measure of manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness

Today’s challenges

• OEE’s six big losses:

– Breakdowns– Setup and adjustments– Small stops– Reduced Speed– Startup rejects– Production rejects

All directly impact production costs

Introducing ‘SureLiquids’ bottling plant

• The plant bottles fluids, packs, and applies product identification

• One of the product bottling lines produces around 1500 boxes of product a day

• 10+ types of different product• 50+ types of different labels

SureLiquids – the team

Ben – Plant Manager

John – OperatorShaun – Operator

….And you guessed it…

It’s going to be a bad day!

A possible day in SureLiquids bottling plant

• 08:00– Ben, the plant manager arrives

and starts the equipment up– Shaun checks the worksheet for

the day and selects the label stock

– He then customises the label stock appropriately for the boxes with thermal transfer label printer


• 08:30– The labels are passed through

to John in the warehouse – John loads them into his label

dispenser

• 08:35– Production begins and boxes

start to arrive in the warehouse– John starts labelling his boxes


• 10:35– Ben identifies that two pallets have

been completed with the wrong labels which is nearly 228 boxes incorrectly labelled

• 10:40– Mark has to get the mislabelled

product down from the rack


• 10:40– Ben gets Shaun to reprint another

228 labels

• 11:00– John manually applies correct

labels over the old ones

• 11:30– Ben and the team can get back to

normal production


• 14:30– Ben receives an urgent priority

order for a different fluid– Ben pulls Shaun away to print

new labels – Shaun goes off and collects new

label stock for the new product and again uses the thermal transfer label printer

• 15:05– Ben is able to switch production

over to the new product


• 17:35 Shutdown and cleanup

– 225m of label backing waste– 32 labels from setup disposed of– Team earned 1hr of O.T.


• John’s end of day management report

– 10 minutes of fork lift support– 228 new labels printed– 30 minutes of additional label

printing– 1 man hour of manual re-labelling

SureLiquids Efficiency, Waste & SKUs

• SureLiquids clearly have opportunities for improving:– Efficiency– Waste reduction– Stock keeping unit reduction

• Linx would propose that SureLiquids use a direct printing solution, rather than label print and apply solution.

• Label print compared to direct printing solutions for boxes and cases…….

Label Print and Apply (LPA)

• Not a continuous technology, adding consumables means stopping printing:

– Requires replacement ribbons– Requires label stock

• Thermal printer heads need replacing:

– SureLiquids replace 4 per year – £100’s per replacement

• Print quality rapidly deteriorates as thermal printer heads age

• To try and manage SKUs, multiple languages were combined on the label by using a small font;

– Difficult for customer to read

Direct printing

• Can be a continuous technology, adding consumables whilst printing;

– Just add ink

• No printhead replacements:– Little service & downtime– Little associated costs

• Print quality can be maintained automatically

• Product identification updated on an as-required basis in seconds

• Print what you need when you need it – minimise SKUs.

What about you?

• Have you or your company considered moving away from a label print and apply product identification process, to a direct print identification process?

– Yes, we did it and get the benefits from the change– Yes, we did it but are not getting the benefits– Yes, but it’s not appropriate for us– No, we have not but may consider it in the future– No, we have no appropriate interest

• Please select your answer from the poll

Improving Efficiency, Reducing SKUs & Waste

• Reducing process complexity– Direct print onto cases or boxes

• Direct printing– Removes labels – Removes label applicator– Reduces changeover times– Reduces waste


• Error-free coding

Scanning the product’s barcode selects the design format and/or printed information from a database

No user input or selection required. Removes risk of typing errors, incorrect data and look-up errors.

Can cross reference against production log to ensure all is correct


• Removing errors

Use by date automatically calculated with offset rule

Barcodes linked to other data fields and change appropriately

Graphics/warning logos automatically chosen from database and display as appropriate

Product name pulled from database from fluid reference

Warning text auto filled appropriate to product

Associated additional information updated


• Reduce label SKUs

•Rapidly customise text upon demand•Label size limits message content•Direct print provides ability to enlarge the print area•No requirement for different or excessive label sizes•Clever printer software using message templates rather than multiple message designs

The text in this box is automatically filled and appropriate for this product and does not need to be squeezed in to allow for different languages

This area may contain more text and so the message can be lengthened in order to accept. It does not require the need to shrink the font, making it still readable for the customer. More words and text and information that the other example

Improving SureLiquids Efficiency

• Availability – downtime:– Recovery from coding errors – diversion of resource– Poor ability to react to sudden production demands or changes– Label production is batch produced

• Performance – slow cycles:– Manual label application bottle-necks process– Thermal label printer non continuous technology

• Quality:– Coding errors, waste labels, potential reject batches from

customer with potential fines

‘6 big losses’ of LPA versus direct printing

Big Losses Current OptimisedBreakdown opportunities Label printer, label

applicatorDirect printer only

Setup & adjustment Manual, label content, printing and positioning

Digitally adjust

Small stop causes Label printer consumable changes, label changes & operator breaks

None

Reduced speed Manual process = 12 boxes/min maximum

Direct printer = 60 boxes per minute maximum

Startup rejects 30 labels None

Production rejects due to setup

Potentially (228 boxes) None

How efficient are your coding & marking techniques?

• Linx has a wide range of direct, digital, coding and marking solutions designed for reducing production costs

• Please chat now or contact us if you would like to know more about how and where direct printing might be able to help your business

• Thank you for listening, please ask questions!

Technology

Reducing Production costs, SKUs & Waste Through Efficient Coding & Marking Techniques