How to Handle Misprints/Damaged Labels/Surplus Labels - Best Practice

This Article is also published under the Printer - Printing & QA 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 workorder cannot be used, other times it may even be that an entire workorder 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 when 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 workorder should NEVER be reprinted. 

ALWAYS: 

If an Entire Workorder Needs to be Replaced

• Printer to inform the Brand that an issue had happened
• Printer provides the workorder ID to the Brandowner
• printer sends the codes.csv file of the workorder to Brand
• Brand blacklists all codes in the workorder - see article: Blacklisting (Individual & Bulk)
• Brand archives the workorder
• Brand to create a new workorder for the same quantity
• Printer processes the workorder as required, ensuring to avoid the previous issue 

If Parts of a Workorder cannot be used

• Printer to inform the Brand that an issue had happened
• Printers scanning/recording every label
  Some printer have capabilities to scan codes in their facility and record that information into a file that can be shared with the brand owner, so there are a couple of ways
  • Printer provides the information of all the codes that were faulty to the Brandowner
  • Printer provides the information of all the codes that can be used to the Brand Owner
  • If printer does not have scanning equipment, for low volumes the Scantrust Enterprise can be an alternative. 
• Brand blacklists all - see article: Blacklisting (Individual & Bulk)
• Brand to create a new workorder for the missing quantity (if required)
• Printer processes the workorder 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 surplus productions. For one, to warrant the integrity of the secure codes, but also to protect the environment by mindfully utilizing the consumed resources. In most cases, the following may work well: 

• permitted delivery 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 the delivery and only pay for 900k labels (i.e. due to quality issues)
  - if printer manages to print 1.1M labels perfectly, brand will accept the delivery and pay for 1.1 million labels
• in all cases, we strongly recommend that ALL codes not delivered be blacklisted (especially if the codes are 'active upon completion')