Covid Test Kits: Automating Product Labels

Covid Test Kits are one of the most sought after products in the current climate of this worldwide pandemic. Manufacturers of these test kits are scrambling under the current demand. Anytime you have a chance to automate any part of your labeling process, it cuts down on time and typically saves money as well.

One of the areas we specialize in is the Bio-tech industry. We recently had the chance to help a client find a more cost-effective solution to what they were currently doing.

The main problem was the company’s label volumes increased four times the amount they usually use and they needed a solution that would not only save time in the labeling process but money as well.  The goal was to move the entire labeling process to an automatic applicator and virtually eliminate all of the handwork.

Related: Need To Automate And Not Sure How?

Problem: Applying Too Many Labels By Hand to Covid Test Kits 

This customer was printing all of their labels in-house in a two-part process. First, they printed labels to go into their automatic labeler which applied all of the labels onto vials. Second, they printed two labels in duplicate form that would go into their test kits.  These two labels are used to apply to the paperwork after the test was completed.  This process was done by hand.

As business started to take off with these test kits, the amount of time and labor for the kitting process was unbearable and they were falling behind with the workload.

Solution: Automate the Process Fully 

Our solution was to first pre-print the labels with the required variable data. Next, we came up with a way to combine the two labels into one label that could be automatically applied. This eliminated the need for any handwork.

We designed a label with several internal perfs so the label could be unwound from the vial to those perfs and then two sections could be removed from the main label and applied to the paperwork.  The company went from printing the labels in-house (which literally took hours) and putting the two labels into the text kit boxes (adding more hours), to simply putting the vial into the test kits with all of the information in one process.

This has saved them 50 hours of labor for each 350M label order they produce a month. The customer was thrilled with this solution!

It was a thrill for me to be part of this project.  I love the challenge to find ways to make companies more efficient and productive when it comes to their labeling.  If you have a labeling challenge that you would like to solve, please give me a call.  I would love to help.

Send us an email or give us a call at 888.972.5234, we are here to help.