Spec Systems is for bar coding applicationsa label manufacturer and importer of Zebra bar code label printers.

Francois Kotze, Business Development Manager for Packaging Execution Solutions at Zetes South Africa.

Managing defective products at Point of Sale

BRAND ACTIVITY

Oct 10th, 08:18

By Wendy Smith

The need for accurate identification and traceability has been perpetuated by recent food scares, like the meat labeling incident in South Africa (February 2013) and the Fonterra milk irregularity (August 2013), where contaminants were allegedly found in some of the New Zealand cooperative’s milk products.

Advances in product identification and coding allow retailers and manufacturers to react quickly to defective products, going so far as to block the sale of problematic goods at point of purchase. This is not only important for regulation and health purposes, but helps them reduce losses and consequently manage brand reputation by preventing the sale of expired goods, or by allowing items from a faulty batch to leave a store.

“Fast moving consumer goods are not long shelf life items and therefore are often subject to Sell-By dates or production variances, such as Lot or Batches, it’s therefore necessary that both consumers and retailers have access to this information for traceability purposes,” says Steven Makepeace, director of SpecSystems, a label manufacturer and importer of Zebra bar code label printers.

While EAN and UPC barcodes are the current standard across all FMCG categories, the use of advanced technologies, like the GS1-DataBar, give manufacturers greater scope to authenticate products; accurately identifying an item down to its specific manufacturing batch, or lot range.

The GS1 DataBar is a highly developed coding and marking application that can carry more information about a product on pack and can also identify smaller items more accurately than the current EAN and UPC standard.

According to Makepeace, “Previously the Lot/ Batch number and Sell-By dates were all only human readable fields, now the use of GS1-DataBar allows the retailer to immediately (and) electronically block any items that are either past their sell-by dates, or within a specific manufacturing batch or lot range identified as problematic.”

Apart from the GS1 DataBar, advances in product serialisation have made it easier for manufacturers to authenticate products, particularly in industries where forging is a challenge. “For example, the pharmaceutical and tobacco industry have challenges regarding counterfeiting,” says Francois Kotze, Business Development Manager for Packaging Execution Solutions at Zetes South Africa. Today’s serialisation solutions can implement unique coding, helping to reduce instances of counterfeiting.

On legislation, Kotze comments, “It has definitely changed for the better, and now offers more clarity regarding requirements and the reasons for these requirements. Not only normal legislation and label legislation have changed, but also with addition of the CPA and the always-present standards from GS1, there is a huge proactive approach from all parties concerned.”

By protecting a product’s integrity and detecting any faults early retailers and manufacturers can keep their supply chains streamlined and prevent the sale of defective goods. The key to achieving this is through accurate traceability applications that can find the source of a problem before it causes unnecessary or irreparable damage.