GHS Needs An “Erin”

Since 1967, Engineered Lubricants has been an independent manufacturer of lubricants, metalworking fluids, rust preventatives and cleaners. Providing products and services across the globe, EL formulates products specific to its customers’ production requirements. EL has one of the most advanced testing laboratories in the United States, offering its customers extensive physical and analytical testing capabilities.

With a foundation built on conservation and savings, EL has been an industry leader in preventative maintenance programs, which are designed to reduce consumption, provide cost savings and help anticipate and eliminate potential problems. Regular lubrication surveys help reduce maintenance costs and ensure proper equipment lubrication.

Almost 1.5 years prior to the deployment deadline of June 15, 2015, Erin Weber of Engineered Lubricants found Color Label Solutions,  colorlabel.solutions and ghs.solutions,  and contacted us about their requirements to produce GHS labels.  At that time, Erin was “exploring the different options that are available in regards to the new labeling required by GHS.  The majority of our shipments are 55 gallon drums and 5 gallon pails.” After discussing the options, I demonstrated a potential printer, producing sample GHS labels, 4″ x 6″ and 8″ x 11″, in color and with pictograms using one their existing products.

I produced these samples using BarTender and a simple Excel database.  You can learn more from my recent blog post:

BLOG: GHS Drum Label Template & Database

 After seeing the demonstration/labels and testing the labels, Engineered Lubricants purchased TM-C3500 and GP-C831 printers; along with 2.25″ continuous labels and 8″ x 11″ pinfeed labels.  With the purchase, I helped Engineered Lubricants get started printing labels quickly and easily using the printers as well as BarTender.

Almost immediately, they put the TM-C3500 in production of sample bottle labels. According to Erin, “we get samples of lubricants used in our customer’s machines as a part of our preventive maintenance service.  Although these labels are currently printed black only, we’ll add pictograms and secondary labeling in the near future.”

Engineered Lubricants started producing sample bottle labels using continuous labels, but soon had troubles with the cutter in the printer and the continuous labels.  As a part of the troubleshooting process, we contacted the Spare-in-the-Air (SITA) warranty program (pos.epson.com/pos/PDF/SITA_Collateral.pdf)  that Engineered Lubricants purchased along with the printers.  Epson replaced the TM-C3500 quickly.  After replacing the printer, Engineered Lubricants decided to move to die cut labels; which actually saved them money compared to the continuous.

After receiving the die cut labels, Engineered Lubricants had another question on the printing.  Erin asked, “I was printing labels from the small printer yesterday and the bottom couple of lines looked like they were not printed all the way, kind of “blurry”.  Luckily, I had recently learned how to troubleshoot this issue and responded to Erin”

“Make sure you have set the “SHUTTERS” on the inside of the front door to match your paper width; especially for the narrow labels like 2.25″.  Look at the decal on top of the TM-C3500.  You need to close the outside 3 SHUTTERS on each side of the inside of the front door.

The TM-C3500 uses a vacuum to hold the paper to the printhead.  With narrow labels especially, you need to make sure the vacuum is only on the label, and not in the open.  A friend at Epson describes it as like “spitting in the wind”. 

By closing the shutters, Erin immediately eliminated the blurry print.

Now Erin is completing the really hard work: classifying their products, and adding the appropriate hazard and precautionary statements.  Also, they are completing their initial label designs using BarTender.  In this sample label, you can see where Erin has included spaces to add variable data such as lot number and net weight at print time:

Although more work to do, Erin has made great progress on the SDS and GHS Label project prior to the deadline.  Every company working on moving to GHS labels needs an “Erin” to insure their new SDS and GHS labels are accurate and completed prior to June 15.

If you need assistance on your GHS label project.  Contact us and we’ll help you move forward like Engineered Lubricants.

Posted at 8:16 AM
Guy Mikel
855-962-7670
info@colorlabelsolutions.com