Challenge
Snapware Corporation®, a producer of plastic storage containers for mass merchandisers, had been using offset printed inserts as the primary means of identifying and branding their products on the store shelf. The inserts required manual labor to place them inside the containers, were costly to produce, and did not fit with the company's long-term plans.
Snapware wanted to improve efficiency and minimize variability while also providing a satisfactory return on investment. Having used pressure-sensitive labels on a small scale in the past, Snapware believed that it could achieve its objectives by pursuing a large-scale changeover to applying pressure-sensitive labels to the outside front panel of each container, but they needed the changeover to occur in a very short period of time for both the labeling equipment it would need to source, as well as the labels. Additionally, the labeling had to be temperature resistant and not wrinkle due to the effects of the heat and subsequent cooling in the container manufacturing process.
Solution
WS Packaging Group was chosen for the project and provided a total application solution within one month. Each label applicator was adaptable to the different sizes of Snapware containers and was designed to be capable of running a variety of label sizes. Rubberized casters added to each machine enabled Snapware to move the equipment between production lines as needed.
WS Packaging tested a variety of label materials to ensure that the pressure-sensitive labels would fulfill the application requirements. WS Packaging worked closely with the Snapware marketing team to ensure the design would be consistently produced within the capabilities of flexographic printing. Once the label was created, a series of test runs were conducted to verify that the integrated label application system solution fulfilled Snapware's requirements prior to a successful launch.
