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Managing product recalls: industrial marking and traceability are crucial

From defect batteries causing fires to salmonella on baby food: We’ve all heard alarming news like these in the media before. Whenever products with defects or safety issues might endanger consumers or cause damage to property, product recalls should be initiated immediately. This usually includes a public request to return affected products.

For manufacturers and retailers, a product recall can be stressful or worse: Severe image loss and high claims for compensation or other significant legal costs can even threaten their existence. Nevertheless, they are rightly expected to handle the situation quickly and professionally. Traceability along the entire supply chain is key: Industrial marking solutions help to keep expenses for product recalls as low as possible.

Product identification and brand protection with traceable labels

Despite careful quality assurance in manufacturing and logistics processes, technical and human errors or manipulations along the value and supply chain cannot always be ruled out. If a product recall is necessary, goods need to be reliably traced from the consumer to the point of origin. Product codes such as batch or lot numbers, serial numbers and best before dates help narrow down and identify critical products. In this way, traceability saves time and money and also simplifies root cause analysis.

drug packaging with tamper evident label
Drug packaging with tamper evident seal label, data matrix code and product codes.

Traceability is being implemented in many industries from automotive to electronics. It is also legally required by national laws and EU regulations for specific product groups such as:

  • Food (regulation EG no. 178/2002)
  • Explosives (2012/4/EU)
  • Medicinal products (2011/62/EU)

Did you know that markings and labels also help battle unjustified product liability claims coming from counterfeit goods? For instance, discreet data matrix codes may contain serialized product data to be verified with a central database. Another additional security feature would be tamper evident labels to recognize if a sealed packaging has been opened.

All these kinds of information and protections can be easily applied by industrial inkjet printers or print-and-apply labeling systems within the production line! A label printer and applicator might be especially handy for this type of situation.

Industrial Markoprint inkjet printer applying data matrix and product codes
Markoprint inkjet printer applying data matrix and product codes
Print-and-apply labeler Legi-Air 2050
Print-and-apply labeler Legi-Air 2050

Finding the right marking system

Finding the right marking or labeling system for your industrial application and manufacturing environment can be easy: Weber Marking Systems’ experts help both manufacturers and their partners to ensure complete traceability.

Contact us for free expert consultation!