This article is also published under the Brand Operations section: How to Handle Misprints/Damaged Labels/Surplus Labels - Best Practice
There are quite a few things that can go wrong during a print run. At times it may be that a few codes of a work order cannot be used, other times it may even be that an entire work order has problems.
Reasons, why some or all labels of a production run cannot be used:
- the Scantrust Secure Code was printed with the wrong dimension. Please visit What Size should the QR Codes have?
- there were some issues with the printing equipment
- there were issues with the substrate
- there were issues with the glue
- there were issues with the ink
- there were issues with cutting the labels
- there were issues with another feature on the same label
- the storage facility got flooded and labels were soaked
- ...
Whatever the reason was, the same work order should NEVER be reprinted.
ALWAYS:
If an Entire Work order Needs to be Replaced
- Printer to inform the Brand that an issue had happened
- Printer provides the work order ID to the Brand owner
- printer sends the codes.csv file of the work order to Brand
- Brand blacklists all codes in the work order - see article: Blacklisting (Individual & Bulk)
- Brand archives the work order
- Brand to create a new work order for the same quantity
- Printer processes the work order as required, ensuring to avoid the previous issue
If Parts of a Work order cannot be used
- Printer to inform the Brand that an issue had happened
- Printer provides the information of all the codes that were faulty to the Brand owner
- printers may have scanners in the facility that can record the data into a file to send to the brand
- alternatively, there are mobile app solutions for barcode scanning and mobile data acquisition
- Brand blacklists all - see article: Blacklisting (Individual & Bulk)
- Brand to create a new work order for the missing quantity (if required)
- Printer processes the work order as required, ensuring to avoid the previous issue
Surplus Labels
With printing, like with any other production or manufacturing environment, a wastage percentage is usually built into the process. That means that if everything works extremely well, there may be as much as 20% extra codes created. Brand and Printer should agree on a process for handling these. In most cases, the following may work well:
- Delivered volume = order volume plus/minus 10%
- Example:
- Brand places order for 1M Labels
- Brand specifies delivery flexibility of plus/minus 10%
- Printer generates codes for 1.1M labels (1M +10%)
- if printer can only provide 900K labels brand will accept (i.e. due to quality issues)
- if printer manages to print 1.1M labels perfectly, brand will accept - in all cases, we strongly recommend that ALL codes not delivered be blacklisted (especially if the codes are 'active upon completion')
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