Labelling solutions play a critical role in modern industrial operations, influencing everything from efficiency to compliance. In fact, up to 70% of labelling errors can be traced back to poor design and implementation. But here’s the kicker: many companies still overlook the strategic importance of these systems. The twist? Investing in the right labelling technology can significantly enhance your operational effectiveness, making you far more agile in an increasingly competitive market.
| Takeaway | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Understand Core Components | Familiarise yourself with the key elements of labelling systems, including printing technology, application equipment, label materials, and software systems, to ensure they align with your operational needs and performance expectations. |
| Define Clear Evaluation Criteria | Use a structured framework for evaluating labelling solutions, focusing on technical performance, economic considerations, and operational needs to facilitate informed decision-making. |
| Establish Data Quality Metrics | Implement metrics for accuracy, consistency, readability, and integration quality to assess the reliability and effectiveness of your labelling solutions. |
| Anticipate Common Challenges | Identify potential environmental, technical, operational, and regulatory challenges before implementing labelling solutions to develop effective mitigation strategies. |
| Prioritise Compliance and Efficiency | Choose labelling solutions that ensure regulatory compliance and operational efficiency, facilitating better supply chain visibility and quality control throughout your processes. |
Labelling solutions form the backbone of modern industrial operations, yet many professionals underestimate their complexity and strategic importance. Before you can properly evaluate labelling solutions for your operation, you need a solid grasp of what these systems entail and how they function in today’s manufacturing environment.
At its most basic level, an industrial labelling solution consists of several integrated components working together to create, apply and verify labels. The primary elements include:
According to Sessions UK, the selection of these components must be carefully aligned with your production requirements, environmental factors and performance expectations for applications ranging from small-batch production to high-precision, high-volume manufacturing operations.
Understanding the range of available technologies is crucial when learning how to evaluate labelling solutions. Each technology serves distinct purposes in industrial settings:
Print-and-Apply Systems
These automated systems print labels on demand and immediately apply them to products or packaging. They excel in high-volume operations where consistency and speed are paramount, reducing labour costs while maintaining precision.
Direct Part Marking
Rather than applying a separate label, this technology marks information directly onto parts through methods like laser etching, dot peening or chemical etching. This approach is ideal for tracking components throughout their lifecycle, particularly in industries where durability is essential.
Thermal Transfer Printing
Using heat to transfer ink from a ribbon onto the label material, thermal transfer creates highly durable labels resistant to smudging, fading and environmental factors. This technology strikes an excellent balance between quality and cost-effectiveness.
RFID Labelling Solutions
Radio frequency identification goes beyond visual labelling by embedding digital information that can be read without direct line of sight. RFID enhances traceability throughout supply chains and enables more sophisticated data collection and management.
As noted by WIOT Group, each of these technologies is designed to address specific durability, traceability and automation requirements within industrial and manufacturing contexts.
Labelling solutions deliver value far beyond simply identifying products. They serve critical functions that directly impact operational effectiveness:
Regulatory Compliance
In regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, food production and healthcare, proper labelling isn’t optional—it’s legally required. The right labelling solution ensures your products meet all applicable standards and regulations.
Supply Chain Visibility
Effective labelling creates transparency throughout your supply chain, allowing for accurate tracking from production through distribution to the end customer. This visibility helps prevent losses, reduces errors and improves inventory management.
Quality Control
Labels often include lot numbers, production dates and other information that supports quality assurance processes. When issues arise, proper labelling facilitates targeted recalls rather than broad, costly actions.
Operational Efficiency
Automated labelling solutions dramatically increase productivity by reducing manual processes, minimizing errors and accelerating throughput. The initial investment typically delivers rapid returns through labour savings and error reduction.
Understanding these fundamentals provides the necessary foundation for evaluating which labelling solution will best serve your specific operational needs, compliance requirements and production environment. With this knowledge in hand, you’re better positioned to assess the technical specifications, compatibility requirements and long-term value propositions of different labelling options.
To effectively evaluate labelling solutions for your operation, you need a structured framework based on clear criteria. This systematic approach ensures you choose a solution that not only meets your immediate needs but also provides long-term value. Let’s explore the essential criteria you should consider when comparing labelling solutions.
Print Quality and Resolution
The readability of your labels directly impacts their effectiveness. Assess the print resolution capabilities (measured in dots per inch or DPI) required for your application. Barcode scanning, regulatory compliance, and brand image all depend on consistent, high-quality printing.
Print Speed and Throughput
Your production line velocity should dictate the print speed requirements. Measure labels per minute or inches per second to match your production rate. Remember that advertised speeds often reflect ideal conditions—request real-world performance data when possible.
Durability Requirements
Labels must withstand your specific environmental conditions. Consider factors like temperature extremes, moisture exposure, UV light, chemical contact, and abrasion resistance. The combination of printer technology and label materials must deliver the durability your application demands.
Compatibility and Integration
Your labelling solution must integrate seamlessly with existing systems. Evaluate compatibility with:
Total Cost of Ownership
Look beyond the initial purchase price to evaluate the true cost over the solution’s lifecycle. Include these elements in your calculation:
Return on Investment Timeframe
Identify the specific efficiency gains, error reductions, and compliance benefits that will justify your investment. Calculate the expected payback period by dividing the total investment by the annual cost savings or productivity improvements.
Scalability for Future Growth
The solution should accommodate your projected growth without requiring complete replacement. Assess:
Ease of Use and Training Requirements
Complex systems that require extensive training can reduce adoption and increase errors. Evaluate the user interface, workflow design, and training requirements. The most effective solutions balance powerful capabilities with intuitive operation.
Maintenance Requirements
Consider the frequency and complexity of required maintenance:
Reliability and Downtime Impact
Labelliing system failures can halt production lines, creating costly bottlenecks. Assess reliability metrics and redundancy features that minimize production disruptions.
Research from CLASP indicates that successful evaluation should employ both qualitative and quantitative methods in an iterative process. This means testing multiple design options based on industry best practices while systematically eliminating unsuccessful designs and refining promising ones.
When conducting formal usability evaluations, a common benchmark is that 90% of users should successfully locate and understand the information presented on labels. This standard ensures your labelling solution delivers clear, accessible information to its intended audience.
Importantly, the research demonstrates that information must be grouped, delineated and presented in a hierarchy of importance (using font size and reading order). Presenting too much information reduces label effectiveness—a crucial consideration when designing label templates and data fields.
Develop a weighted scoring system that reflects your organization’s priorities. Assign each criterion a relative importance rating, then score each potential solution against these criteria. This approach brings objectivity to what can otherwise become a subjective decision process.
For example, a pharmaceutical manufacturer might weight compliance features most heavily, while a high-volume consumer goods producer might prioritize throughput speed and reliability.
By defining these evaluation criteria before engaging with vendors, you gain several advantages:
This structured evaluation framework provides the foundation for making informed, strategic decisions about labelling solutions that will serve your operation effectively for years to come.
The effectiveness of your labelling solution ultimately depends on the quality of data it captures and displays. Poor data quality leads to operational inefficiencies, compliance risks, and potentially costly errors. When evaluating how to implement labelling solutions, establishing clear data quality metrics is essential for ensuring your system delivers reliable, accurate information.
Error Rate Measurement
The most fundamental metric is the error rate in your labelling process. This should be measured across several dimensions:
Set a target error rate based on your industry requirements. In highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, acceptable error rates may be as low as 0.001%, while consumer goods might tolerate slightly higher rates.
Verification and Validation
Implement a systematic approach to verify label accuracy. Consider these verification methods:
Label-to-Label Consistency
Consistency between labels is crucial for both branding and operational efficiency. Measure variations in:
System-to-System Consistency
If you operate multiple production lines or facilities, evaluate consistency across different labelling systems. This ensures that products labelled in different locations maintain the same quality standards, particularly important for multinational operations.
First-Time Scan Rate
For barcode labels, measure the percentage of successful first-time scans. This metric directly impacts operational efficiency in your supply chain and at retail points. Industry leaders typically achieve first-time scan rates above 99.5%. Factors affecting this metric include:
Human Readability
For text information, assess legibility under typical usage conditions. Consider factors like font size, contrast ratio, and readability in varying light conditions. Remember that information hierarchy matters—according to research from CLASP, information must be properly grouped and presented in a clear hierarchy to be effective.
Data Transmission Accuracy
Measure the integrity of data as it moves between systems. This includes:
Data Completeness
Track whether all required data fields are present on each label. Missing information can lead to compliance issues or operational problems. Establish a completeness checklist based on regulatory and operational requirements.
The labelling industry is increasingly embracing automation to enhance data quality. According to Grand View Research, the global data labelling market is projected to grow from $18.63 billion in 2024 to $48.93 billion by 2029, driven largely by the demand for high-quality data to support AI and machine learning applications.
This growth reflects an important trend: automation technologies are enhancing accuracy by reducing human error in the labelling process. When evaluating labelling solutions, look for systems that incorporate:
To effectively measure these metrics, establish a formal protocol that includes:
Implement a continuous improvement process that uses these metrics to drive regular system optimizations. The most effective approach combines automated quality monitoring with periodic manual audits to verify system performance.
By establishing these data quality metrics before selecting a labelling solution, you create objective standards for evaluating vendors and technologies. This approach ensures that your investment delivers the accuracy, consistency, and reliability your operation requires, while providing a foundation for ongoing quality assurance throughout the solution’s lifecycle.
Even the most carefully selected labelling solutions can encounter obstacles during implementation and operation. Understanding these challenges in advance allows you to develop mitigation strategies and select solutions designed to address potential problems. Let’s examine the most common labelling challenges and practical approaches to overcome them.
Temperature Extremes
Many production environments involve temperature fluctuations that can compromise label adhesion and print quality. Cold storage environments are particularly challenging, as standard adhesives fail below certain temperatures.
Solution: Specify labels and adhesives designed specifically for your temperature range. For cold environments, special cold-temperature adhesives maintain their properties down to -40°C. For heat exposure, select materials that resist degradation and adhesive softening at your maximum operating temperature.
Moisture and Chemical Exposure
Liquids, humidity, and chemical exposure can destroy standard labels through ink bleeding, adhesive failure, or material degradation.
Solution: Implement multi-layer laminates with protective coatings when necessary. Synthetic materials like polyester and polypropylene offer superior resistance to moisture and chemicals compared to paper-based labels. Match your label material to the specific exposure conditions in your environment.
Abrasion and Physical Wear
In supply chains with significant handling, labels can become illegible through physical wear.
Solution: Use durable synthetic facestocks and protective overlamination for high-wear applications. Consider laser-etched metal labels or direct part marking for extreme durability requirements where traditional labels would fail.
Legacy System Compatibility
Many manufacturing environments operate with a mix of new and legacy systems that must work together seamlessly.
Solution: Select labelling solutions with flexible connectivity options and open standards support. Middleware solutions can serve as a bridge between incompatible systems. During evaluation, conduct extensive integration testing with all affected systems before final implementation.
Data Synchronization Issues
Labels pulling data from multiple sources can encounter synchronization problems, leading to outdated or inconsistent information.
Solution: Implement a centralized label management system that serves as the single source of truth for label data. Configure automatic data validation checks to identify inconsistencies before labels are printed. Consider a cloud-based solution that keeps all locations updated with the latest data.
Cybersecurity Concerns
As labelling systems become more connected, they face increased cybersecurity risks that could compromise data integrity or system availability.
According to Gramont Consulting, cybersecurity threats represent a growing challenge for labelling operations. To address this issue, organizations are increasingly adopting cloud-based, scalable labelling solutions with robust security features and compliance management tools.
Solution: Evaluate the security architecture of potential labelling solutions, including encryption capabilities, access controls, and regular security patches. Implement proper network segmentation to protect labelling systems from broader network vulnerabilities.
Production Line Speed Limitations
High-speed production lines can outpace the capabilities of labelling systems, creating bottlenecks.
Solution: Match print-and-apply technology specifically to your line speed requirements. Consider distributed labelling approaches with multiple units for very high-speed lines. Test throughput under real-world conditions, not just vendor specifications.
Changeover Time Between Products
Frequent product changes requiring different label formats can significantly reduce operational efficiency.
Solution: Implement template-based labelling systems that allow quick format changes without requiring complete system reconfiguration. Train operators thoroughly on changeover procedures and create standardized processes to minimize downtime.
Operator Training and Adoption
Complex labelling systems often face resistance from operators accustomed to simpler processes.
Solution: Involve operators in the selection process to gain buy-in. Develop comprehensive training programs with hands-on practice sessions. Create simple, visual standard operating procedures and quick reference guides for common tasks.
Smart Label Integration
The increasing adoption of smart labels with embedded NFC and RFID technologies introduces new production challenges, particularly in regulated industries like pharmaceuticals.
As reported by Packaging Technology Today, these advanced labels require precise inlay placement and protection of sensitive electronics during the conversion process. These technical demands can complicate production and reduce line efficiency if not properly addressed.
Solution: When implementing smart label technologies, select solutions that incorporate multi-layer construction techniques and specialized adhesives designed specifically for electronic components. Work with vendors experienced in producing functional smart labels at scale, and conduct thorough testing before full implementation.
Regulatory Compliance Changes
Evolving regulations across global markets create ongoing compliance challenges for labelling operations.
Solution: Implement label management systems with built-in compliance features that can be updated as regulations change. Consider solutions that maintain a library of regulatory requirements by region and product type. Establish a clear process for monitoring regulatory changes and updating label templates accordingly.
By anticipating these common challenges and building mitigation strategies into your evaluation process, you can select labelling solutions that not only meet your current requirements but also adapt to changing conditions and overcome obstacles that inevitably arise during implementation and operation.
Labelling solutions typically consist of printing technology, application equipment, label materials, and software systems that work together to create, apply, and verify labels.
When evaluating labelling technology, consider technical performance, economic viability, and operational needs using a structured framework to ensure you select a solution that provides long-term value.
Key metrics for measuring data quality in labelling include accuracy, consistency, readability, scannability, and data integration quality, which are essential for ensuring reliable labelling operations.
To overcome common labelling challenges, anticipate issues related to environmental conditions, technical integration, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance, and develop mitigation strategies in advance.
In evaluating labelling solutions, it’s vital to remember that the stakes are high. Mistakes can lead to costly recalls and brand erosion, impacting your bottom line and brand reputation. As highlighted in our Ultimate Guide, precision, compliance, and operational efficiency are paramount—especially in environments where labelling errors account for up to 70% of operational failures.
At Sessions UK, we understand these challenges deeply. We offer a diverse range of labelling machines tailored to meet the unique demands of various industries, whether you’re a small artisan producer or a large-scale manufacturer. Our solutions not only boost accuracy but also enhance efficiency, ensuring your products meet regulatory standards and leave a lasting impression on consumers.
Ready to transform your labelling process? Explore our Explore by Application tool that helps you match your needs with the perfect machine effortlessly. Don’t let labelling errors jeopardise your success—visit us at https://sessionsuk.com and discover how we can help you elevate your packaging game today!
Copyright © 2025 Sessions Label Solutions Ltd.