Don’t Let Product Handling Undermine Your Labelling Accuracy
In food, beverage and pharmaceutical production, there’s huge pressure to ensure labels are accurate, compliant and applied at speed. But while most teams focus on the label applicator itself, the true bottlenecks often lie just before and after it. Misaligned products, inconsistent spacing, or unreliable rejection can all lead to mislabelled products — or worse, downtime.
If your labelling is underperforming, it might be time to look upstream and downstream.
What Is Pre & Post Labelling Product Handling?
Pre-labelling handling refers to everything that happens before a label is applied — including how the product arrives, how it’s spaced, and whether it’s oriented correctly.
Post-labelling handling covers inspection (e.g. using vision systems), rejection of faulty products, and smooth transport down the line.
Common Bottlenecks in the Labelling Zone
1. Inconsistent Spacing
Without a spacing unit, products can bunch up or arrive unevenly, causing the applicator to miss or misplace a label.
2. Incorrect Orientation
Round bottles or oddly shaped items need to be precisely rotated or aligned. Otherwise, labels end up skewed, folded or unreadable.
3. Manual or No Rejection
If there’s no automated rejection system, errors pass through unchecked — or require manual inspection and removal, which slows everything down.
4. No Integrated Inspection
Vision systems are the smart way to ensure every product is correctly labelled. Without them, you’re relying on luck — or people — to catch issues.
The Business Case for Handling Automation
- Reduce Rework by automatically rejecting non-conforming products
- Ensure Compliance with consistent, verifiable label placement
- Protect Uptime by eliminating jams and misfeeds
- Improve Quality Control with real-time inspection
- Speed Up Changeovers with flexible, programmable systems
Built and Installed by experts at ALS Identify
At ALS Identify, we design and build product handling systems in-house; from conveyors to spacing units, orientation modules, and rejection arms. We also integrate with labellers, printers, and vision systems, giving you a seamless, efficient solution tailored to your line.
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