A Hands-Off Approach To Bar Code Labeling

Talk about lasting impressions. In 1988, Tom Thatcher, president of Tharo Systems, Inc. (Brunswick, OH) made a sales call to Plasticolor, an Ashtabula, OH-based manufacturer of color additives for the plastics industry. At the time, Thatcher was promoting his company's EASYLABEL bar code labeling software to Plasticolor's Plant Manager Dale Hayes. Although Plasticolor passed on this opportunity to bar code its operations, Hayes never forgot Thatcher or Tharo Systems.

Twelve years later a lot had changed. The importance of bar codes throughout the supply chain had risen to the point of compliance labeling initiatives. Essentially, compliance labeling mandated suppliers of parts/components for certain industries to use a standardized bar code and label format. So if a company supplied parts to a market like the automobile industry, it either met the bar coding criteria or lost its customer.

A Manual, Error-Prone System
Plasticolor does, in fact, act as a supplier to the automobile industry. However, in 2000 the company was having other problems with its product labeling process. Namely, the data for the labels was not coming directly from the company's AS/400 mainframe. Therefore, all the information for the product labels and shipping labels had to be rekeyed into a separate label printing program. This process, of course, created the opportunity for errors to occur. Furthermore, a dot matrix printer that could not produce bar codes was printing the labels. Finally, the labels were being applied by hand - another error-prone system.

Hayes began researching print-and-apply bar coding systems and came across an ad for Tharo. Hayes remembered the company and called Thatcher who, in turn, contacted one of his company's VARs, H.L. Kottman and Associates (Cincinnati). Together, reps from Tharo and H.L. Kottman met Plasticolor MIS (management information systems) and production staff at Tharo for hands-on product demonstrations. "The sales process for this project went very smoothly," said Harold Kottman, president of H.L. Kottman. "Hayes had done his homework on this equipment and felt comfortable dealing with Tharo because of his previous knowledge of the company. He also liked Tharo's no charge policy for assistance after the sale." Thirty days after the demonstration, Kottman began installing the new system at Plasticolor.

Print-And-Apply On Irregular Shaped Containers
The plastic additive Plasticolor makes is a creamy, gel-like substance. "This a job-shop type of environment," Kottman explained. "Most of Plasticolor's customers want a specific mix of the additive. So, each job is mixed individually in a large vat." The final product is poured into cone-shaped plastic tubs ranging in size from 1 quart to ½ gallon. A conveyor system takes the filled tubs to the shipping area where they are packaged in cardboard cartons.

Plasticolor's MIS department, with Kottman, integrated the Tharo EASYLABEL software with the company's AS/400. Then Kottman made modifications to the height and width of the conveyor system to accommodate the blow-on process used by the Tharo Apollo 1S print-and-apply system. This system, which included a customized tamp pad and Tharo Apollo 1 printer, was used for labeling the product containers. "The label comes out of the printer and a vacuum on the tamp pad of the applicator holds the label until the product container reaches the unit's sensors," Kottman said. "The arm of the applicator extends within two inches of the box and the label is blown onto the container." A Tharo Apollo PA 1000t print-and-apply system with a customized tamp pad and Apollo 2 printer finishes the process by applying shipping labels directly to the cardboard cartons.

Add Real-Time Visibility
Because of the AS/400 integration with the EASYLABEL software, Plasticolor eliminated the need for rekeying label information. The company now has real-time visibility into the exact number of tubs that have been filled for a job and where those tubs are in the process. In addition, all of the labels include bar codes and are applied straight (as compared to the haphazard fashion employed when they were applied by hand) on the containers and boxes.

Kottman said it only took about an hour to train the Plasticolor staff on the operation of the equipment and use of the bar code labeling software. The entire installation cost $18,541. After the installation, Hayes jokingly said, "You can tell Tom his sales call 12 years ago finally paid off!"