Posts from the Label Printing Category
Price Look-Up Application on Short Notice
Posted by Dana Ritchie on August 18th, 2008
Recently, PaladinID was contacted by a retail client with a serious and time sensitive business problem. They are opening their first stores in MA and have discovered that our busy elected officials on Beacon Hill have thrown them an unanticipated curve ball. It is a law in this Commonwealth that all items in a store be individually price labeled. For those items where that is not practical, the store must provide one price look-up scanner (you have seen these at WalMart) for every 5000 feet of floor space. Basically, the scanner reads the bar code on the item and performs a search of the store’s point-of-sale data base and then displays the price. In this instance, the scanner is connected to the store’s server via an Ethernet connection.
Unfortunately, our client was made aware of this requirement about three weeks before the first store was scheduled to open. They were steered to PaladinID by our good friends at Honeywell Imaging and Mobility. Honeywell offers a product specifically designed for this application called the Image Kiosk 8560. The 8560 is a Windows based terminal with an integrated bar code scanner the uses Adaptus Imaging Technology for reading 1D and 2D bar codes.
PaladinID then reached out to our partner PSS Products for the software link between the 8560 and the client’s POS application Island Pacific’s OnePointe. PSS Products has a wealth of experience in dealing with Island Pacific software but also in implementing price look-up applications for other retail clients.
With the timely help of our distributor partner Scansource, PaladinID was able to supply the 8560 to PSS Products who were able to load and test the software and deliver the finished product to our client in about a week! If you are in the retail space and have a similar problem give us a call – because that’s what PaladinID does - solve problems!
Mobile Printers Can Now Print Permanent Labels!
Posted by Dana Ritchie on August 14th, 2008
Datamax Corporation just released a new product called D-Transfer that allows mobile portable printers to use thermal transfer printing for a much more permanent label than what is currently available using direct thermal labels. All mobile printers use direct thermal label stock which have a short shelf and use life. The companies the use labels and barcodes have asked for a more permanent solution and Datamax has answered the call. This new product can be used in all mobile printers. We have stock sizes for the O’Neil printer line and custom sizes for the Zebra, Datamax and Sato lines. I am just putting together a white paper that goes into more detail. If you are looking for a permanent solution to your mobile printing needs, here is your answer. Conact us for more information.
On-Line Bar Code Verification Revisited
Posted by Dana Ritchie on July 28th, 2008
In an earlier post we talked about an application in which our client needed to verify the print quality of bar codes as they were being printed. We recommended an after market bolt-on scanning device that could trigger a divert from the manufacturing line if a sub-standard bar code was detected.
Well, we have another client with a similar business problem – ensuring that the bar codes they print on their products are scannable by their end user customers. However, this application differs in that the labels are printed in a peel and present mode and then manually applied to the product. So, the after market Printronix device was not an appropriate solution.
We consulted with Bruce McDowell at Datamax who recommended the H class thermal transfer printer with an on-board linear scanning device option. This high performance 300 DPI printer employs a CCD scanner to monitor bar code scannability as it is being printed. The user can set a series of thresholds including bar code type, number of bar codes present or minimum number of good reads that must be met by the scanned bar code label. If the bar code does not pass, the user also has a number of remedies to choose including re-printing the label or simply stopping the printer.
While this solution does not provide true ANSI bar code verification it is about half the price of those devices and does provide simple bar code validation which is more than adequate in this and many other applications. We will piloting this device with our client in a few weeks – so, more on this solution later.
Visiting Western New York in July
Posted by Dana Ritchie on July 21st, 2008
Last week Dana and I took the opportunity to visit with a number of our vendor partners in the Buffalo NY area. Dana was there with his family visiting Niagara Falls and I drove from Boston to join him. We met with one of our distribution partners, Bluestar who has a regional office in West Seneca NY. The local manager there is our old friend Mike Moscato.
We also got the opportunity to meet with Kathi Phelps at IIMAK, the ribbon manufacturer, who graciously took us to lunch. PaladinID and IIMAK have a relationship that goes back to when Dana started the company. We got an opportunity to tour the plant and meet the sales and marketing staff at headquarters in Amherst NY.
We also met with Jeff Bertrand at JH Bertrand in Buffalo. JH Bertrand is a manufacturer of expansion labels – they are the labels that attach to products and fold out to accommodate a lot of information. We are excited about the prospects for this new product line as it should be a good fit for a number of our existing customers.
Then it was back to the Falls for Dana so he could continue his family vacation and 7 hours of windshield time for me back to Medfield on I-90.
MassPlastics Show
Posted by Dana Ritchie on March 31st, 2008
PaladinID exhibited at the MassPlastics show at the Royal Trade Plaza in Fitchburg MA on March 26 & 27. The show is aimed at the large number of plastic manufacturers and plastic component suppliers located in the central part of the state. Although not as numerous as they once were, the Leominster/Fitchburg corridor is home to a high concentration of businesses in this industry. The show was reasonably well attended with a steady flow of foot traffic on both days. Many of the exhibitors who were located near the PaladinID booth told us that they has been attending this show for many years and that from there many were headed to a similar show in Baltimore.
We were ably assisted by three of our reseller partners. Neal Berenson of Datalogic served booth duty with us on Wednesday and took us to dinner at a great place called the Monument Grill located, of all places, in Leominster. Thanks Neal! Ed Riley of Honeywell Imaging helped with demo gear and his affable presence on Thursday. Thanks Ed! And Jay Lauer from Opticon pitched in with some marketing funds.. Thanks Jay!
And lastly, thanks to Mike Moscato at our distribution partner Bluestar for making available a Datamax M class printer for display.
Zebra Training at Vernon Hills IL
Posted by Dana Ritchie on March 18th, 2008
I spent two days last week being trained on the Zebra Xi and 105SL thermal transfer printer product lines. The purpose of the training was to become more familiar with these products and to be able to provide service support on them to our customers. The class was ably run by Mr. Bruce Henderson, Senior Technical Trainer for Zebra and was held at the Zebra offices in the American Hotel Register building in Vernon Hills, IL. There were a total of five attendees at the class and they represented both the end user and reseller sides of the business.
I came away from our time together with two overriding impressions. The first is that Bruce really knows his stuff. And he enjoys teaching it. The class was energetic and filled with useful information from beginning to end. The second is that Zebra really builds a great product. You really can’t appreciate that until you tear down a Z110 and put it back together again. The printer is the cumulative result of many years of design, testing and field experience. As a result, it is a very powerful and reliable thermal transfer printing device. It is easy to see why Zebra is the gold standard in this industry.
RJS/ Printronix high speed on-line verification on the manufacturing floor
Posted by Dana Ritchie on February 21st, 2008
One of our manufacturing customers approached us with a business problem to solve. (That’s what we do!) The product that our customer makes is targeted to retail markets and requires highly readable UPC bar codes or they get the product returned from their clients. Or worse, they are assessed an escalating fee for each instance of non-scanning. Because of the volume of products they manufacture and the speed of the production line, it is not practical to manually inspect or verify each item to make sure the bar code label is readable. In addition to an automated verification process, they also wanted a system that could store a record of each bar code that was successfully scanned on the production line. PaladinID contacted Jack Tedesco at RJS/Printronix, an industry veteran and expert in high speed bar code verification technology. Jack recommended the Scanvision SV200-1 scanner for high speed conveyor applications. In addition to providing our customer with the high speed verification and record keeping that they required, the Scanvision software actually gives them a real-time graphic display of the verification occurring on the production line. While addressing this customer’s business problem, we found that there are not a lot of folks out there who really understand this bar code scanning application, so if you have this requirement, we would be glad to help.
Meeting With Datamax Factory Rep Bruce McDowell
Posted by Dana Ritchie on February 20th, 2008
I want to thank Bruce McDowell for meeting us for lunch and training session this week. Datamax has come out with some very unique features in their printers. I was very impressed with what Datamax is doing. Their printers are robust and very durable. One thing that impressed me most, being a Zebra certified tech, is how easy it was to work on these printers. Almost everything was at your finger tips, out in the open. Another thing I really liked about the printer line is that once you get out of the portable printers, they are all RFID capable. Meaning that if you buy one of these printers today, you can add the RFID encoder later for very little charge. All other printer manufacturers require you to purchase an RFID ready printer. Datamax give you that option free of charge. We will talk more on these printers when new applications arise. Again, thank you Bruce for taking the time to meet with us and for a wonderful lunch at Joe’s American Bar & Grill in Woburn, MA.
Pressure Sensitive Green Labels Is The Word
Posted by Dana Ritchie on January 29th, 2008
Recently I have had several customers ask about “Green Labels”. At first I was not sure of what they were talking about. After some research and talking with my suppliers, there is in fact a small buzz out in the market place for labels to become more green. This is what I have found, we are working on ways to become more green, be it from recycling the trim from our labels, to the type of packing materials used to looking into higher post consumer waste (PCW) in the papers we use to convert labels. Things in the works are new papers being developed out of corn stalks and new recyclable adhesives which is all better for the enviroment. As new developments can along, I will be sure to share them with you.
Zebra 105S Printhead
Posted by Dana Ritchie on December 17th, 2007
Zebra has discontinued the 105S line of printers, which is not new. What is new is that they are not supplying the printheads to these printers anymore. We are now supplying a full line of printheads, including ones for the Zebra 105S. If your printer needs a new printhead, don’t discard the printer, replace the printhead.
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