Expensive production standstill due to labelling problems
Due to production line stoppages caused by label printing problems, manufacturing companies are suffering significant losses.
According to the study, which surveyed 300 IT managers of manufacturing companies in Germany, France, the UK and the US, production downtime due to labeling problems costs manufacturing companies an average of more than €1.1 million per year. This is according to a recent study by NiceLabel.
If we look only at the German companies, these losses are lower, at around 700,000 euros, but still alarmingly high.
Overall, more than two-thirds (67%) of the study participants reported that they had to shut down their production line for longer than an hour when there was a problem with label printing. For a further 21% it was still more than 30 minutes. In Germany, 54% of the study participants had to shut down production for more than one hour and 28% for more than half an hour due to such problems.
As the study further shows, such incidents occur on average around six times a year (in Germany around five times). More than three quarters (77%) of the study participants stated that their production lines had to be stopped four or more times in the past year (62% in Germany).
Labelling is becoming increasingly important
"Business interruptions and downtime can have a significant impact on manufacturing companies, lead to lost sales and even put the company as a whole at risk," comments Ken Moir, vice president of marketing at NiceLabel. "The risk of them being caused by mislabeling is increasing as labeling becomes an increasingly important part of business and supply chain strategy."
Given these losses, it is not surprising that 26% of the study participants consider cost reduction, another 26% error elimination and 18% productivity increase as the greatest benefits of modernising their manufacturing processes, including labelling. Of the German study participants, 26% also named cost reduction as the main benefit, 20% productivity increase and 16% error elimination.
"The risks of labeling problems to manufacturing operations go far beyond a manufacturing shutdown," Moir adds. "For example, with decentralized labeling, there is usually no 'single source of truth.' Instead, there are often as many labeling formats as labeling locations. This leads to data redundancy, makes company-wide updates unmanageable, and contributes significantly to inaccuracies and inconsistencies."
Download the study here as e-book
