Don’t let a barcode stop your work dead. A barcode is supposed to work for you. Here’s a case in point: We were contacted by an impressive, organized, technically proficient company which engineers incredibly expensive small submersible submarines for research purposes. One of the products—a $500,000 feat of superb and intricate engineering wizardry—was ready to be shipped out of the country for an important undersea research project. Stopped dead in the water without a barcode.
The product was an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). As the name indicates, AUVs are not driven by operators, so they must detect and avoid obstacles in their path. Their ability to sense their surroundings is called “situational awareness.”
Unfortunately, the company was not aware of the “situation” that would be caused by the lack of proper product identification. When they became aware, they were frantic, frazzled and frenetic.
Fortunately, we took their chief engineering officer under his wings and calmed him down. We said, “A label solution is the first thing you need, but the last thing you think of” and the guy said, “Whoa.” The company’s European customer would not accept shipment without barcode labeling. His company could thus not collect the half million bucks the CFO was screaming for.
Talk about a critical need! But EIM supplied a complete solution—the super-tough labels, the label printer and the barcode label design software. Problem solved.
Don’t let this happen to you:
For the want of a barcode, a label was lost.
For the want of a label, the order was lost.
For the want of an order, the money was lost.
For the want of money, the company was lost.
And all for the want of a reliable barcode label!
