How to get started with
Bar code Labels
by Phyllis Davis-Minik
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.
Copyright 1999, Advanced
EDI & Barcoding Corp
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. The website is
at
www.edi-barcoding.com(no
longer a live link) |
