Labels West has been in business since 1978 and specializes in the production of self adhesive labels used primarily for product packaging.  The industries they serve include food and beverage, wine, and personal care.  They are known for high quality, multi-color labeling.  In a soft economy, they were looking for ways to cut costs without impacting their ability to serve their customers.

There are hundreds of individual jobs processing through the Labels West plant at any one time.  Each job involves several steps, and each step takes place in a unique location with the facility.  Critical documents (drawing and specifications, for example) are housed in a small job folder that travels through the production process.  Their employees were spending hours a week searching for these folders when information needed to be added or modified.  

Labels West began researching job tracking solutions that use barcode technology to track their jobs.  They purchased the CheckMate tracking system to solve their problem and to automate their job tracking process.  They use the unlimited user version of the software running on individual PC’s on the production floor.  A Honeywell Voyager corded scanner is attached to the PC’s for increased accuracy and speed.  

Currently about 25 employees actively use the software.  A barcode is printed on the job  and is scanned as it moves into a new location.  Management is able to quickly locate the job folders using the “search” function of the software.  This simple solution is saving 20 hours per week in labor for the company, which equates to over $15,000 annually.  The software was paid for in less than 3 months.

Besides the labor cost savings, CheckMate’s reporting allows Labels West to manage their job flow – they now know where a job is and how long it’s been there.  It eliminates the need for employees to interrupt each other, thus slowing down production.  And knowing the exact location of a job increases their customers’ satisfaction.  If a customer wants to know the status of a job, the answer is the click of a button away.

“I would highly recommend this solution.  It does exactly what it is supposed to do,” stated John Shanley, owner.  “We are very pleased with CheckMate.  It installed easily, is stable and the technical support is excellent.”