Labels West has been in business since 1978
and specializes in the production of self adhesive labels used primarily for
product packaging. The industries they
serve include food and beverage, wine, and personal care. They are known for high quality, multi-color
labeling. In a soft economy, they were
looking for ways to cut costs without impacting their ability to serve their
customers.
There are hundreds of individual jobs
processing through the Labels West plant at any one time. Each job involves several steps, and each
step takes place in a unique location with the facility. Critical documents (drawing and
specifications, for example) are housed in a small job folder that travels
through the production process. Their
employees were spending hours a week searching for these folders when
information needed to be added or modified.
Labels West began researching job tracking
solutions that use barcode technology to track their jobs. They purchased the CheckMate tracking system
to solve their problem and to automate their job tracking process. They use the unlimited user version of the
software running on individual PC’s on the production floor. A Honeywell Voyager corded scanner is
attached to the PC’s for increased accuracy and speed.
Currently about 25 employees actively use the
software. A barcode is printed on the
job and is scanned as it moves into a
new location. Management is able to
quickly locate the job folders using the “search” function of the
software. This simple solution is saving
20 hours per week in labor for the company, which equates to over $15,000
annually. The software was paid for in
less than 3 months.
Besides the labor cost savings, CheckMate’s
reporting allows Labels West to manage their job flow – they now know where a
job is and how long it’s been there. It
eliminates the need for employees to interrupt each other, thus slowing down
production. And knowing the exact
location of a job increases their customers’ satisfaction. If a customer wants to know the status of a
job, the answer is the click of a button away.
“I would highly recommend this solution. It does exactly what it is supposed to do,”
stated John Shanley, owner. “We are very
pleased with CheckMate. It installed
easily, is stable and the technical support is excellent.”
