Avoiding Product Labeling Compliance Issues

Doing it right is good for business

Product Labeling compliance is quickly becoming a hot topic in materials management. Tackling the process with a logical, forward-looking methodology is critical to your company’s success.

Unsuccessful implementations of a compliant product labeling system can quickly suck away your precious time and money while keeping you two steps behind the competition. That’s critical ground that you can’t afford to lose in today’s fast-moving market.

Regardless of your industry, if you are a manufacturer or distributor you are most likely required to label your products and shipping containers per industry, regulatory or customer requirements. There is increasing focus on labeling standards as part of industry supply chain efficiency initiatives and concerns with security and product safety. Today, labeling standards primarily based on bar coding are further evolving to include RFID technology, promising yet more efficiency and visibility in the supply chain.

While large companies and the government have the clout and economic power to insist on compliance, pursuing a standard approach to product labeling can provide much more value than just keeping the 800 pound gorilla off of your back! Standardized labeling reduces complexity, reduces cost and ensures critical product, safety and usage information is readily available by enforcing consistency in label data and its format. A sampling of industry groups and regulatory agencies that have established labeling standards include:

• The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) ~ www.aiag.org
• The Uniform Code Council (now GS1 US) ~ www.gs1us.org
• Air Transport Association – SPEC2000 ~ www.spec2000.com
• Food and Drug Administration ~ www.fda.gov
• Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards Association ~ www.vics.org
• Chemical Industry Data Exchange ~ www.cidx.org
• EPCGlobal Inc ~ www.epcglobalinc.org

In many cases companies are given no choice about implementing a labeling compliance solution—it becomes a question of how, not when. Your existing customers may require it as a condition of doing business; there may be fines for non-compliance; or most likely, a regulatory agency that oversees your industry has initiated new mandates with noncompliance resulting in steep fines or restrictions on product shipments and sales.

Too often companies feel pushed into compliance, and therefore product labeling is implemented with a "quick fix", standalone application. While suitable for low volume single point-of-use environments, these solutions fail miserably in high-volume operations where products are shipped from multiple locations with complex labeling requirements. These "quick fix" products lack the integration capabilities, robustness, and management features needed to successfully address sophisticated product labeling needs.

A systematic approach to labeling with an overall company and product perspective can provide significant benefit to your business above and beyond avoiding fines and disgruntled customers:

• Shorter lead-time and reduced cost to provide compliant labels or respond to new or customer specific requirements
• Attract new customers or enter new markets with demonstrated ability to meet compliance standards
• Improved customer satisfaction by delivering products with consistently high quality labeling
• Reduced system complexity by eliminating or avoiding "one-off" labeling solutions for specific labeling requirements

When evaluating and selecting a provider for enterprise-grade compliance labeling solutions these key characteristics should be included:

1. Integration with product data management and ERP systems to drive label generation based on current product, order and customer data.
2. Label generation closely coupled with manufacturing and distribution processes through automation or well-defined workflow.
3. Centralized administration and control to ensure consistent use of data and label design across all locations and business units.
4. Ability to support existing and emerging bar code symbology and RFID standards.
5. Version control and audit history for regulated products such as medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
6. Multi-lingual support, including multi-byte languages such as Japanese and Chinese.
7. Proven software components and architecture for robustness and maintainability.

Product compliance labeling is a business critical process and provides a competitive edge to those who do it well.

Feeling anxious about implementing an enterprise labeling solution? Pragmatyxs can assist you in finding the right products and services to solve your current and future compliance needs.

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