Labeling Innovations from Weber

I recently read an article in The Washington Times asserting that many products that bear the label “Made in America” are largely built outside of the United States. In fact, according to the article, some products with as much as 90 percent of their components coming from outside the U.S. can still qualify for the “Made in America” label due to a loophole in the product-label system.

One California businessman, who claims the practice is deceptive, is working with his congressman to update existing labeling laws in an effort to give consumers a much better sense of where their products really come from.

It’s an interesting article that highlights the pros and cons of establishing – and complying with – new labeling guidelines. One potential pitfall, the article states, is that a new law would make it difficult for companies to print detailed product labels.

However, while it might be a chore to determine the exact percentages of the contribution of each country to the final product, today’s label printing technology makes it pretty easy to print the necessary details.

We often work with customers who need to make revisions to their labels. Common revisions include:

• Address changes
• New material because of a change in use
• New company logo
• New information about the product that needs to be labeled

Jeff Hausen, our QA manager, explained that to me the need to expand inspection capabilities.
“Historically, manual inspection methods and sampling plans have been effective in supplying quality products to meet our customers’ needs,” said Jeff. “Customer expectations, however, are changing and are becoming more demanding, whether to accommodate streamlined production processes or increased regulations.”

This means more labeling printing jobs require extra inspection, specifically, 100 percent inspection.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded our inspection equipment to include six computerized inspection units, which gives us increased capabilities for 100 percent inspection.

How They Work

With a computerized vision system on press, an operator will be able to detect any label defect immediately – and know exactly how many labels were affected. This also will increase productivity because we’ll be able to catch the defects before the rewind process and eliminate a second press set-up process to replace defective labels.

And by identifying and fixing any problems as they occur, we will be able to reduce both scrap and cost. This makes it a green manufacturing solution that we’re excited to use!

When it comes to working with pharmaceutical, food and medical labels, there is no room for error. These customers need to meet government regulations set by the FDA that ensure that the product they put on the shelves is clearly marked with health and safety information.

Our customers need to be able to meet ever-changing FDA regulations, international market regulations and meet the demands of their customers. Knowing this, Weber has made improved inspection quality a major priority.

Why is inspection important?

Our goal is to always produce the best product for our customer. The first step for this is always the quoting and proof process. Once we have a proof from the customer, we must make sure that the product we send them matches the specs requested on the proof. Making sure the material is right for the application, the barcodes are all readable and text is clear, is all a part of the inspection proof and inspection process.

While there’s no way to completely eliminate press errors, we can work with equipment to detect the errors and make sure they’re not sent to the customer. The inspection process is crucial for ensuring a quality product for the customer.

Here at Weber’s Arlington Heights, IL plant, we print A LOT of labels every day. And that means plenty of waste that used to go to the landfill.

by Mike Soloway
Weber Labeling Systems Manager