Piroto Case Studies

National Seafood Supplier

A national seafood supplier approached Piroto Labelling Limited with a requirement for an efficient and accurate means of recording and tracing the fish that are brought onto their site on a daily basis.

In response to this query Piroto Labelling proposed that a stand-alone printer be supplied and installed in the goods inwards area.

This printer allowed all operators to clearly transfer necessary information onto Fish Loop tags, which were each printed a different colour to represent a particular day of the week.

These tags were then attached to trays that follow the fish throughout the processing areas.

This consequently allowed them to be easily traced at any point during the process, right up until they were packed and shipped to customers.

Following the success of this system the customer went on to install similar systems in each of their other six sites.

This simple yet effective solution to a vital issue enabled the customer to reduce their labour costs as well as:

• Increase traceability to 100%
• Consider BRC accreditation
• Provide a compatible system across the whole of their UK sites

 

National Foodservice Provider

A national food service provider was presented with a problem when the labels for their distribution centre no longer fulfilled their requirements.

Within the distribution centre the two main uses for their labels were:

• Goods in labels
• Picking labels – approx 14,000 items per day

Originally these labels had been supplied on a roll but had recently been changed to A4 sheets due to new company policies. Problems then began to occur as, although they ran well through the printers at first, during storage the sheets would curl at the edges and would cause the printer to jam.

Difficulties also arose with the varied surfaces of the products as this would often result in labels curling or falling off completely during storage.

Another concern that the customer raised was that the print would frequently rub off the labels during picking, resulting in increased picking time and label re-prints.

All this resulted in added time and costs.

What Piroto did....

Our consultative approach allowed us to gain a thorough understanding of the customer’s requirements and led us to take the following actions in order to fulfil their particular needs:

We first carried out trials of our laser matt material to confirm that the printer toner settings were correct so that we could achieve good, stable print. This eradicated the problem of the print rubbing off the label.

Secondly, we trialled a variety of adhesives with the established face material so that we could ensure good adhesion across the many substrates that were in the system.

To resolve the issue of the sheets curling we used our laser matt material which has a good Kraft backing with excellent lay flat properties.

As all of these benefits met the criteria specified by the customer; they consequently placed an order with us and also went on to benefit from the new material within a number of additional aspects of the distribution centre, including:

• Improved identification of stored goods
• Improved efficiency of picking and goods in labelling
• Improved delivery efficiency
• Reduced operational costs
• Reduced label usage – no waste

 

Western Sussex Hospitals - NHS Trust

BLOCK OUT, THE SOLUTION

Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust has a pharmacy re-packaging unit at their Southlands Hospital site. The role of the unit is to prepare ready-to-dispense packs for pharmacies that are otherwise unavailable from pharmaceutical manufacturers.

A great deal of order picking in hospital pharmacies is now being carried out using automatic methods. Identifying the packs by barcode reduces human picking errors primarily, and also offers a time saving.

The re-packaging unit over-labels some manufacturer’s packs with dispensing labels containing barcodes, as well as instructions for using the drugs. In some cases the original manufacturer’s barcode, which has to be covered by the label, could be scanned through the label. This leads to picking errors and potentially could lead to the barcode scanning as another product, where the implications for that scenario are very serious.

After a number of ideas were discussed, Piroto sampled a material suitable for laser printing, which has an opaque layer between the adhesive and face paper, blocking out anything underneath the label.

The barcodes scanned regardless of what was printed on the carton; the material was then adopted for all over-labelling operations and the problem was solved

PILL PACK BOOKLET LABEL HOLDER

A well known clinical trials company faced a major problem!

Their booklet label supplier had promised to provide a multi page label that could be applied directly to a blister pack of pills for an important study, where timing was of the essence.

With only a few days to go they were advised that the design could not be manufactured, as planned, and they could only deliver standard booklet labels, not suitable for use with blister packs.

The clinical trials company contacted Piroto, who sent two specialist members of the team the following day and a brief was drawn up.

The label had to stay fixed to the blister pack throughout its useable life, regardless of how many pills had been dispensed, and had to be capable of carrying a standard booklet label.

After consultation with Pirotos' technical team, mock-ups were handmade, re-designed and proofed, with the delivery of a useable product manufactured within 7 days of the first call.

The product was a success, it can be made to fit any size or configuration of blister pack and a number of follow up orders have since been received.

Without this quick response and innovative design the trial would have been in jeopardy.

Major Food Processor & Manufacturer of Ready Meals for a Nationwide Retailer

Piroto personnel were invited to our site to study the existing traceability method where adhesive labels were either printed or hand written then attached to trays. We were looking to improve on the ease of cleaning internal movement trays and to remove the application of metal detectable self-adhesive labels, the use of which could lead to product contamination caused by residue remaining on the food containers. We also wanted to standardise the information that was recorded across our site in a standard, bespoke format.

Phase One was to introduce, as a trial, metal detectable, non-adhesive, Loop Tags into the goods inwards/stores department; these performed very well, and as a result we received improved feedback during our BRC Audit. Staff bought into this system very quickly and became advocates for extending the system throughout the site after seeing the benefits of a standard label format and ease of use.

This success resulted in Phases Two and Three being accelerated as the whole site took on the new metal detectable Loop Tags; this part of the operation also required the introduction of three more print stations.

Phase Four finalised the installation with a custom-made solution to remove the final need for any self-adhesive labels, as well as providing:

• A reduction in labour, equating to a saving of £30,000 in one department alone.
• A reduced amount of mistakes from hand written traceability through consistently legible labels.
• Full colour day labels has simplified stock rotation across site.
• Secure attachment to trays through processing.
• Waterproof labels that withstand processing and retain readability.
• Complete removal of self-adhesive traceability

Working in partnership with Piroto Labelling Limited, the site has seen significant improvements.