Labeling Solution Provides Ongoing Income, Future Sales

Doug Brown Packaging Products is a packaging solution VAR that sells and services equipment, specializes in labeling solutions, and distributes consumables to customers. It recently discovered a niche in the automobile industry for durable safety labels on items included in the manufacturing of automobiles, including seat belts, airbags, and engine parts. It targets specialty niche markets needing packaging and labeling solutions, and tailors them for customers.

Several of Doug Brown Packaging’s customers are referred via contact with vendors whose products the company includes in its solutions. For example, Dynic USA contacted Russ Brown, president of Doug Brown Packaging, to notify him of a seat belt manufacturer seeking a solution to improve its seat belt manufacturing process and to extend the breadth and accuracy of information contained on safety labels affixed to its belts. Employees at the seat belt manufacturing plant were using hot-stamp printing technology to create labels and sewing them onto the seat belts. The manufacturer wanted to increase the data gathered during the manufacturing process to provide additional information on the labels, improve the durability of the labels, increase the speed of the label creation, and enhance the manner in which the labels adhere to the belts.

The manufacture of seat belts is subject to strict quality and safety standards. “Each seat belt must be tracked during its creation to determine detailed information about the machinery, materials, date, and time of manufacture,” says Brown. “Under the old process, seat belts could only be tracked by the date and shift during which the seat belt was created.” Safety officials use the information contained on the label during accident investigations in which the performance of the belt is questioned. The seat belts (and affixed labels) are also subject to several UV (ultraviolet), tear, and flame-retardant tests to ensure the materials meet the strict quality standards set by the automotive industry, as well as each automobile manufacturer.

Dynic USA contacted Brown, but the VAR did not have an existing solution for the seat belt manufacturer, so it researched the machinery available to integrate with Dynic’s materials, including the requirements necessary for this type of implementation. His proposed solution included an Avery Dennison TTK printer (now known as the AP 7.t) with a cutter/stacker attachment, Dynic USA’s Sirius thermal transfer ribbons, and the specialized media (fabric) called Cetus to create the labels. “We acquired the equipment and demonstrated the solution to the seat belt manufacturer,” says Brown. “In combination with Avery Dennison and Dynic, we allowed the manufacturer to use the solution on one machine for a 60-day trial period.”

Safety Label Solution Enables
Niche-MarketVAR To Increase Sales
After the 60-day trial period and several modifications that enabled the manufacturer to use necessary fonts, logos, and quality standards, the seat belt manufacturer purchased five Avery Dennison machines running the solution. “Because of the high volume of seat belts it manufactures, the six-week lead time necessary to transport the Cetus media from Japan, and the lack of available space at the manufacturing plant, we purchase the material in bulk quantities, store it, and distribute it to the seat belt manufacturer each week,” says Brown. “This provides considerable convenience and value to the customer while offering just-in-time distribution of materials. Consequently, the seat belt manufacturer provides better quality labels, experiences a labor savings since some employees were transferred to other areas within the company, and attains greater traceability in the labels created.” Previously, the seat belt manufacturer was able to narrow the label and seat belt to the shift it was manufactured within; it is now narrowed to the moment of creation and the exact machine that sewed the label to the belt.

The seat belt manufacturer is planning to expand the use of this solution to additional lines of seat belts it produces, which will generate additional sales of both the machines and the consumables. Additionally, the VAR demonstrated this solution to several other manufacturers seeking high-quality, security-intensive labels on safety products. This specific technology can be used within the automotive industry on other products, such as airbags, seats, and other manufactured parts subject to safety restrictions.