How to Get Started with Bar Code Labels

I receive many calls and emails each week form people asking "what do I do, my customer just called and told me I have to print bar code labels". You don't know where to begin, so you search the internet to find the answers. You work fast because the customer wants the labels starting next month. In this article I will show you some simple steps to finding a solution for your company.

First you need to find out what type of labels your customer is requesting. The most common labels are UPC labels. These are the labels you find at the grocery store and at retail stores on products like kleenex, and canned goods. UPC labels can even be found on large items like lawn mowers. If this is what your customer asked for, then you will need to place a UPC bar code on each product you ship your customer. Here are the steps for UPC label printing:

1 - Contact the Uniform Code Council (UCC) at (800) 543-8137 to obtain a manufacturer identification number.

2 - Decide if you should have a printer print your bar code labels or if you want to handle printing the labels yourself. You will want to consider the volume of labels you require for your products. If you need a large volume of labels and very few products it will be best to go to the printer to have the labels created. If you have a small volume of products or multiple products you may want to try to do it yourself.

3 - If you decide to print the labels yourself there are several ways to create the labels. If you have your products in your computer already, then find out from your software provider if you can print bar code labels from your software. You will need to find out what printers are compatible with the software. Sometimes you can print the labels out on a laser or ink jet printer, but other software requires a barcode printer. If you can print from your software, you are in luck, there will not be much expense involved. No data entry, no additional software, and maybe no hardware!

If you do not have your items in an inventory software package or your software company does not have the print bar code label feature then you will have to buy a stand alone PC based label software program. The programs are available from $50.00 - $1,000. There are many to choose from. I suggest you visit http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/share.html There are some software programs available for downloading at this site.

When you choose your software be thinking about how you want to print the labels. You could print the labels on a special bar code printer which costs $500.00 - $5,000 to purchase. The reason you may want to purchase a special bar code printer is you may find yourself buying expensive print cartridges much more often than you want to. Printing a label on a deskjet or inkjet takes more ink than most other documents you print.

If your customer asked for shipping labels this will complicate matters. You will need to go through step 3 outlined above. The shipping label contains information about the products in a shipment. For example if you had 2 of product 123 and 3 of product 567 your customer will want the information printed on the label and placed on the outside of the container. What makes the shipping labels more difficult is that every customer requests a different label format.

Phyllis Davis-Minik, president of Advanced EDI & Barcoding Corp has been in the Information Technology field since 1981, specializing in EDI, inventory management and bar-coding Before Phyllis started Advanced EDI & Barcoding Corp she was employed by International Paper for around 6 years as a programmer analyst and project coordinator. Phyllis is a member of TAPPI , GCA, APICS and the AFPA EDI committee. Advanced EDI & Barcoding Corp has been in business since 1994. The company is located in Pensacola, Florida.