Inaccurate and late shipments are a threat to Copeland Corp., a leading manufacturer of compressors for residential and commercial air conditioning and refrigeration systems. Many of its customers levy fines for such poor performance, which leaves little room for error. The solution is a labeling and packing verification system that ensures 100% accuracy and has since eliminated end-of-line packaging errors.

The company aimed to verify all shipments without slowing down operations. This is no easy task since Copeland packages 500 compressors an hour stacked up to 40 per skid.

What's more, each compressor has a 17-digit model number, which is easily misread. "The pace is fast, the compressors are heavy, and everyone knows that nothing can stop the line," says George Dade, senior IT business analyst for Copeland Information Systems.

A switch from printing labels in batches to printing them on demand gives Copeland accuracy without sacrificing speed. When a compressor reaches the packaging area, a fixed scanner reads a work-in-process tracking label to identify the unit's customer. A thermal label printer then generates a nameplate label, which is adhered to the compressor and scanned to verify that it is being loaded on the correct pallet.

The company's packing verification system also ensures that each compressor added to a pallet is the correct unit. The system connects the label printers, bar code scanners and various other devices to a host database.

Workers create a license plate label, which is placed on an empty pallet. After loading a layer of compressors onto a pallet, a worker scans the pallet label and each compressor's serial number. The database then verifies that the serial number is valid and is on the correct pallet.

An accurate, complete load is shrink wrapped and a final label attached. Workers then scan the pallet and compressor labels to verify the customer order, model number and part information.

With the new labeling and verification system in place, Copeland has slashed its returns rate to zero. The system has now been rolled out at nearly all of Copeland's facilities.