Customer

Entergy Corporation, the second largest nuclear generator in the United States, is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations, owning and operating power plant with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity and 14,500 employees. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.6 million utility customers and has revenues of more than $10 billion.

Challenge

Entergy’s nine nuclear power plants operate under OSHA’s Lockout/Tagout Standard 29 designed to safeguard employees from unexpected startup of equipment and protection from hazardous energy. As an employer, a durable and standardized lockout and tagging procedure must be in place when machines and equipment are being maintained and serviced.

The existing manual printers provided labels that were often low quality or could not handle the condition of the plant well.

Solution

To ensure Entergy was exceeding regulations, a proactive approach was taken to find alternatives to the existing manual process of marking machines as dangerous or locked out. A team from Entergy began benchmarking alternatives. They landed on technology integrator, Miles Data Technologies, and the Zebra Technologies 105SL printing system. In less than three months, Miles Data was able to work with Zebra and provide a synthetic tag and thermal transfer ribbon formulation that is scratch and water resistant, and can be printed on-demand.

“Miles Data understood the strict OSHA requirements we were under and customized a solution for our nine nuclear sites,” said Jeff Lanum, Senior Project Engineer at Entergy. “They have always supported my rollout schedules and provided the best solution for the unique process at each location.”

Results

Since implementing the Zebra system, printing tags on demand has not been a problem. Employees were eager to jump on board because the printing solution made their workplace safer and saved them time by printing safety tags and labels on-demand.

“It’s been astounding – we’ve had minimal service calls and the equipment works all the time,” said Lanum. “I have put money in the budget for new printers the last few years, but the original equipment is still going strong. Some printers are over seven years old.”

Customer

The Wisconsin based foundry specializes in ferrous metals: gray iron, ductile iron, stainless steel, and specialty iron castings. As a leader in its field, the Milwaukee based foundry helped its customers build the backbone of civilization by providing castings for many of the products they are famous for throughout the world. Optimizing every process is crucial to minimize down time, and maximize efficiency.

Challenge

Automate the label printing process by utilizing SAP to generate flat text files that can be handled in real time by an automated printing system. These text files would contain the information that is to be printed onto the label. The system must be centralized, require no manual queing of print jobs, and be able to distribute print jobs throughout the nation, and to any printer on the Foundry’s network.

On top of developing a new printing system, the new label fi les used must pass an extensive Quality Assurance (QA) evaluation process that visually compares the old labels to the new – ensuring an exact replication.

Solution

The solution requires a piece of label creation software that can not only design the labels, but can also handle the SAP output by filling in fields on the label at run time. The proposed software solution was to use Seagull Scientific’s Enterprise Edition which includes Bartender (label design piece) and Commander (automated printing piece).

The chosen integration method was to generate flat text files from within SAP that contained the information that is to be printed onto the physical label. This fl at text file would be dumped into a folder on a server that was being monitored by Commander. As soon as the file was recognized Commander would populate the according fields within the label file, and send the job to the specified printer.

Results

The benefi ts of the new system are a fully automated label printing system driven by SAP and Seagull Scientific’s Enterprise Printing software. Print jobs are generated in real time and distributed throughout the nation as needed.

By automating the label printing process we have eliminated the human error element, and maximized employee productivity. The end product was a seemless transition into an SAP driven, automated label printing.

Customer

The beneficiary of this Miles Data solution is a leading global provider of residential heating and air conditioning and commercial hvac solutions that reliably improve indoor environmental quality. The company provides energy efficient commercial air conditioners, chiller systems, hvac controls, hvac parts & supplies, and building automation systems that contribute to sustainable building design.

Challenge

Track un-painted compressor tanks which were currently being marked by hand with white chalk. The chalk marks were difficult to read, provided no image stability, and offered no opportunity for automatic data collection.
The goal was to provide a pressure sensitive label that could be printed on-demand at the production line and applied directly to the un-painted surface of a curved metal compressor. The label would be expected to adhere to the compressor as it passed through several paint stages including: a rigorous paint preparation process, a powder coated paint process, and an oven drying cycle. It was imperative that the label adhere to the compressor through the entire process as stray labels could potentially clog various draining mechanisms. Because the label would often be applied only seven minutes prior to the paint preparation process, the application required an aggressive, quick set adhesive.

Solution

After an initial phone consultation to review the application, an on-site visit provided an in-depth look into the current system and the desired outcomes of a re-design. Several synthetic label materials and thermal transfer ribbon formulas were tested. The materials that helped meet all criteria were a white polyester label facestock with high-tack permanent adhesive combined with Miles Data ribbon formula AE428 and Zebra 105 model printers. Each label was printed on demand on the production floor and included a 7 digit number (human readable from 8 feet away) and encoded as 2D Data Matrix symbol for auto tracking.

Results

The benefits of the new marking system are numerous. Compressor tanks are tracked efficiently and accurately. Information is timely because of the ability to print on-demand on the production floor with a networked industrial  thermal transfer printer. Loss of labels and information is virtually eliminated because of the durable face stock, aggressive adhesive and durable ribbon formulation. Encoding the 7 digit numbers as a 2D Data Matrix symbology requires less space on the label and allows for automatic data collection resulting in fewer errors and enhances employee productivity.

Customer

The Fortune 500 company is a leading producer of cold finish steel bar products for shafting and machined precision parts. Traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the cold finish expert has facilities all over the nation, and is the largest recycler in America – recycling a ton of steel every two seconds – more than the entire aluminum industry combined.

Challenge

Automate the company’s label printing process by utilizing Oracle to generate basic text documents which can be handled in real time by an automated label printing system. The system must be centralized, require no manual queuing of print jobs, and be able to distribute print jobs throughout the nation, and to any printer on their network.

On top of meeting their own needs, the company’s labels must meet the needs of their many vendors. This means the system must be capable of replicating existing label formats – as well as creating new formats from scratch.

Solution

The solution requires a piece of software that can not only design the labels, but can also handle the Oracle output by filling in fields on the label at run time. The chosen software package was NiceLabel Suite from Niceware because of its ability to integrate seamlessly with Oracle.

The chosen integration method was to generate XML from within Oracle that contained the information needed by the label. This XML would be output to a folder on the server. Using a module of NiceLabel Suite (NiceWatch) we were able to detect the XML as soon as it was on the server, link the corresponding XML to variable fields on the label, and print the label to the specified label printer – all without the use of human interaction. NiceLabel is an Oracle certified solution and utilizes the standard Oracle XML format for label printing to eliminate host side changes.

Results

The benefits of the new system are a fully automated label printing system driven by Oracle and NiceLabel Suite. Print jobs are generated in real time and distributed throughout the nation as needed.

By automating the label printing process we have helped eliminate human error, and maximize employee productivity. The end product was a seamless transition into Oracle driven, automated label printing.