First Of Many II

Smark Company (smarkcompany.com) of South Gate, California prides itself in the reputation that has been established over the years of providing their customers with superior industrial chemicals and dyeing auxiliaries distribution services. With hundreds of different products and specialty chemicals, Spark has the products you need for your business, providing them in 1 gallon to up to truckload quantities.

I first contacted Smark after Michael Garcia, Supply Chain Manager, requested information on printing color labels on demand to meet the requirements for GHS. In our initial discussions, I learned about their interest in stopping the use of preprinted and laser printed color labels.

According to Elisabeth Dondiego of Smark, “we’re spending over $0.50 for each for our labels. We need to find a way to reduce our label costs and preprinted label inventory. Plus the toner from the laser printer can smudge and spread over the labels, and these laser labels are not chemically resistant. Finally, the labels jam many times, taking over 1 hour just to print 30. The need to produce GHS labels has caused us to look for a new printing solution.”

Soon after our initial discussion, I met with the team at Smark, to demonstrate the GP-C831 printer to produce drum labels; and the TM-C3500 for their smaller package sizes. To demonstrate the printers, I loaded the drivers for these printers on their computer and had them printing labels quickly.

Based on the demonstration, Smark purchased a GP-C831 and a TM-C3500 along with ink and labels. While installing the GP-C831, I made an easy-to-do mistake configuring the printer. To set the page size in the driver, you need to use the actual label width (8.375” in this case); and the perforation-to-perforation distance (14”) and not the label length (13.875”). This difference in length causes the label to “creep” moving the image off center by a 1/8th inch. You can read more about setting up the new C831 driver here: colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2014/11/gp-c831-surprise.

Also while installing the GP-C831, I mentioned to Michael about the new TM-C7500. He immediately visited our blog and website to see the printer running: colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-new-printer-is
Based on our discussion and the website, Smark decided to return the C3500 and purchase the brand new TM-C7500 printer. According to Michael, “we decided to return the C3500 and get the C7500 as the new printer was faster and more cost effective. We’re working to improve our overall labeling process and the new C7500 seemed like the best option.”

Fortunately, we were able to get one of these limited-availability printers from Epson and install at Smark. We installed the printer on the network and had them printing on both paper and poly labels immediately.

Although the new C7500 printer was installed and running, we did not have their 4” x 8” matte poly labels available at the same time. The combination of producing on demand, customer’s unique label configurations and increased requirements means it may take some time to produce and deliver the initial order. Producing your labels on-demand is further made more difficult as our plants are full. Planning ahead is critical. One solution which our customer find convenient is the use of blanket orders; pre-assigned quantities and delivery schedules ensure your labels are delivered when you need them.

Smark Company’s initial reaction to the new printers is positive. According to Elizabeth, “the new printers look good, we need a way to reduce our costs and produce GHS labels more efficiently.” Smark was our first install of the new C7500 printer. You may want to read about my first install of the TM-C3500 printer here: colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2013/09/first-of-many

I am very fortunate to have customers like Smark. The team at Smark has treated me wonderfully and are truly nice people open to new ideas and options. And more important, Smark has a good solution to produce great looking GHS labels affordably and on-demand.

The install at Smark is hopefully the first of many of these great new printers. If you need to produce GHS labels or want the new TM-C7500 printer, contact us. We’ll help you get started printing labels quickly as well.

Posted at 4:42 AM
Guy Mikel
855-962-7670
info@colorlabelsolutions.com