Fast, Flexible and Accurate – ColorWorks™ Printers Address Shifting Labeling Operations in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
Long Beach, CA (August 5, 2014) –The rise of high value specialty pharmaceuticals, growth of the generics market, smaller order sizes and increasing label complexity are driving demand for shorter batch color labels. With the Drug Quality and Security Act’s (DQSA) impending guidelines, the pharmaceutical industry requires technologies that can rapidly and accurately match label changes to maintain a smooth production flow. Pharmaceutical distributors and repackers can increase operational flexibility with Epson America, Inc.’s family of Just In Time Color™ (JITC) labeling solutions, which will be showcased at the inaugural Pharma EXPO (November 2-5, 2014; McCormick Place, Chicago, IL), Booth #427 (West Hall).
Epson’s portfolio of ColorWorks™ technologies can efficiently and cost-effectively produce small to medium size color label runs from 1 to 10,000 pieces.
- The ColorWorks C3500 is ideal for manual or roll to roll label applications ranging from high value, low volume specialty pharmaceuticals to small to medium volume automated filling operations.
- The ColorWorks C831 Wide Label Printer is ideal for GHS-compliant, large format drum and chemical labels and is also the first inkjet solution to be British Maritime Shipping Standard BS5609 certified1.
- The next-generation ColorWorks system will also be featured at Pharma EXPO. Geared towards higher volume applications, the robust bench top printer will introduce faster print speeds and superior image quality powered by Epson’s signature PrecisionCore™ print chip technology.
Epson’s labeling solutions are designed to provide users with the capacity they need today, and the flexibility to cost-effectively scale up production as they need it.
“The generics market is driving the demand for private branding, allowing private label retailers to brand their generic OTC product offerings,” says Kelly Ng, Product Manager, Healthcare, Epson America. “These trends, compounded with increasingly complex packaging and labeling standards, mean that pharmaceutical companies must now produce a higher mix of SKUs with shorter delivery timelines, while dealing with greater variability in design, order size, regulations and end-user specifications.”
Epson’s JITC technologies offer repackers and distributors the opportunity to efficiently incorporate custom color label production into their operations and manage frequent, fluctuating quantity orders by printing the exact label they need - on demand. The real-time capabilities of ColorWorks printers facilitate compliance with industry standards and help distributors avoid label overstock and high capital investments. In a single step, Epson’s JITC technologies can reduce total labeling costs by eliminating the need for color pre-prints.
“A major challenge we are seeing in the pharmaceutical sector is the inefficiency of pre-printed color labels for a variety of applications,” continues Ng. “The majority of the time, from a quarter to half of the pre-prints that you find in label stock rooms are obsolete. For supply chain and operations managers, this is cash left on the shelf. The Epson JITC solution is to use blank stock and print color as you need it.”