The Mercian Labels Group Blog – Security Labels International, Mercian Labels and AC Labels

Mercian Labels located in Cannock, Staffordshire are now recruiting for a Graphic Designer (published 23 August 2010).

The role of Graphic Designer is to assess and prep electronic design files for digital pre-press work and the production of printing plates, ensuring maximum continuity, the highest quality and efficiency of operation.

100% desk based.

Detailed responsibilities

* To reconcile all electronic design files with customers expectations, and press production
* To be responsible for accurate and timely issue and chasing of artwork approvals to our
customers
* To be responsible for accurate and timely issue of works orders to our print team
* To submit timely design file to plate makers every day
* To solve problems by liasing with customers and suppliers as required
* To resolve all internal and external design queries.
* To support the Sales Team with technical queries when required
* Other tasks to support the business plan as and when required

For full details, please view the full job description

To apply please email (preferred) or post your CV to the Sales Team Leader – Elaine Jefferson at elaine.jefferson@mercianlabels.com as soon as possible. Informal discussions by phone are welcome on 01543 431 079.

Harveer Sahni, MD of the Indian Labelling company Weldon Celloplast has launched his new blog. Its in its early days, but I hope that the blogosphere will be enhanced by this
labelling superpower from the Indian sub continent – good luck Harveer!

first chilli crop of 2010

The fist chill cropping of 2010 was on Saturday, now all safely picked away in jars ready for the winter curries. Lots to come from the initial plants!

The Mercian Labels' Sales team - (Left to right - Judy, Charlie, Andy, Marina, Richard, Elaine)

Sometimes its good to put a name to a face – so here are our amazing sales team at Mercian Labels!

From left to right we have Judy (Sales Coordinator), Charlie [Charlotte] (Key Account Manager), Andy (Sales Coordinator), Marina (Export Sales Coordinator), Richard (Sales Assistant) and Elaine (Sales Manager).

Suggestions welcome in the comments box of who you think is the office “character”…

the "security label" in place

We recently bought a Three MIFI unit for remote web access, which came packaged above with a so called “tamper evident” label saying “I’m secure. Check contents if seal broken or VOID displayed”. Ummm.

the seal removed intact

well it took seconds using a simple technique to remove.

and reapplied again

and here is is reapplied.  You’d have to have a very careful eye to see any change.  In fact I rushed this a bit and could have done a better job  if I’d have had my “tools” in the office at the time.

a Label Lock applied

Contrast this product with our stock Label Lock product – OK, its a bit big for this application, but we do customise them on request.

a Label Lock removed leaving a permanent change on the box AND the label

And a Label Lock removed, using the same technique which removed the white “security ” label above.  Notice any difference?  I think I know which one does the job it is supposed to, and which one does not.  If you need to secure a box from pilfering, then we recommend you use a product upto the job – not one that is just “all talk”.

I recently purchases a new Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop from Amazon.co.uk

This came with Microsoft Windows Vista pre-loaded, but being the Open Source advocates we are here at Mercian Labels, I bought this laptop with the mind to install Ubuntu 10.04 right away.

Whilst installing Ubuntu 10.04 was easy, a few issues arose with getting the wireless working with the chipset, but thats another story; but after installing Ubuntu, I decided to try my luck at getting a refund from Dell for Windows.

I had read previous articles outlining a few steps in order to try and get a refund on Windows, so this is what I did.

Even though I purchases this through one of Amazon’s third party sellers, I thought it was best to contact them first.

I went through the process of contacting customer services (Amazon > Help, Click How do I contact customer service?, Login, Click E-Mail and then Put in order number, then select Issue: Return and Refunds, and then I sent the following email:

SENT On: 28/07/2010 10:30am

To Whom this may concern.

I recently purchased a Dell laptop from yourselves, order number ############.

I do not agree to the terms of the Dell Software Licensing Agreement or the Microsoft Windows End User License Agreement.

I confirm that I have not used any of the software on the laptop, nor booted the laptop up into Windows, and have deleted all preloaded or embedded software from my Dell Laptop.

How will you refund the cost of the Microsoft Windows Vista software? I note that Windows Vista Home Premium retails at £151.95, which means a total refund of £151.95 is due.

Kind Regards
Rich

Within 19 minutes of sending the email, I got a response from Amazon, which was prompt, stating:

Response: 10:49 28/07/2010
Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

After looking into your enquiry, I can see that you have placed this order ############## with one of our registered third party seller “######”.

I am sorry to learn that you are not happy with the license agreement. In a case like this, we do ask that you first contact the seller to explain the situation and to make appropriate arrangements.

To contact your seller just click the Your Account link on the top right of Amazon.co.uk, and click the Your Orders button. Next select the order from the options Orders Listed by Date.

Then locate the relevant order number on the left of the screen. You will also see an image of the item(s) in your order so as to identify it correctly.

Once located, look for the yellow button to the right of your screen reading Contact Seller.

For more information on communicating with Marketplace sellers, you can visit this link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3149541

I hope that this issue will be resolved to your satisfaction

Thank you for your understanding and for shopping at Amazon.co.uk Marketplace.

I have sent the exact same email I originally sent to Amazon, to the third party seller, and will update this post as and when I receive any response.

GRAB MY BALLS

This label is destined for a well known high street food outlet and was spotted on the back of the ID badge of a well known sales professional at the factory last week…  we do sometimes get asked to manufacture some unusual designs!

I was interested to hear of the launch  of Labelgrid recently.  This is a new open source project (GPL licence) to design a web based label printing software stack to design and print labels in a browser rather than the typical client based software.  There  will be a number of challenges in this as the authors point out on their webpage, but I thin its a really interesting idea if they get it to work well, and I wish them all the best in the code development .  You can see a demo here.

getting ready for the off!

Cpt Ed Pawsey of the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment recently contacted us in their bid to raise money for Help for Heroes , the charity that helps to support wounded UK service men and women.  Ed and his colleagues are doing the Help for Heroes European Rally and have had some good local publicity.  This is what they say on their website

Team Green Howard has secured a place on the Help for Heroes European Rally 2010.  This rally as you may have read consists of a monster 1650 mile drive starting on Salisbury Plain crossing Normandy and ending at Hitler’s ‘Eagles Nest’ in Berchtesgaden, Austria whilst traversing 6 countries.  This rally follows the route of the well known TV series ‘Band of Brothers’ and is part road/off road competition whilst visiting specific historical locations.  All in order to raise funds for the Help for Heroes charity.

The Team consists of Ed Pawsey, Will Pawsey and James Kelly.  Both Ed and James are Captains in the Army.  Ed’s in the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment (the Green Howards).  James is a Captain in the Royal Engineers and is a Bomb Disposal Officer.  Will is a student studying Criminology at Nottingham University and is set to join the Poice Force.  All three of us have close links to friends who have been injured or killed in Afghanistan and make this trip and raise funds in memory of them. Help for Heroes is at the front of our mind for obvious reasons and without this charity and your generous donations our many injured service men and women would not have the lengthy process of rehabilitation your fundraising has begun to provide.  Without this rehabilitation it would be near impossible to give these Heroes the ability to rebuild their lives and face a positive future.

Please give what you can as every little helps.  ALL money raised goes to the charity and not funding the event or team.  It may take 5 minutes to register but 5 minutes now is a future better for all.

Ed is asking for any donations on his Just Giving website, so please contribute anything you can to this very worth cause.

the cover of the new publication

A new magazine landed on my desk yesterday, “Digital Labels and Packaging Magazine“.  I scanned it this morning and fund it to be a reasonable summary of the state of the digital labelling machinery marketplace, with big adverts and plugs from all the major players apart from Epson.  I’d recommend this as a one off read, but as so little happens in this arena outside of the big shows, I’m struggling to see what fresh content is going to arrive with each new edition every quarter.  Time will tell I guess!

2 self adhesive coating lines, running water based and hotmelt coating heads

On the way back from holiday I took the opportunity of visting one of the European label material suppliers in Spain, and was allowed to take a few pictures of their very impressive new operation.  Established on this site about 3 years ago, Manter run a very slick operation with 2 coating lines, pictured above.  Each line has 2 reel of paper as inputted raw materials, together with a supply of liquid adhesive and liquid silicone, all of which are combined at speeds of hundreds of meter per minute to make a self adhesive label construction.

If you dont know much about the labelling industry, all suppliers (inlcuding us at the Mercian Labels group) buy material from suppliers like Manter who throw out enormous volumes of self adhesive coated papers and synthetics, which we then print on and covert to produce individual labels.  Pretty much every label you ever see started life on machines like these!

the automated picking line for loading raw materials into the lines

Manter have invested in very impressive automation to make their operation more efficient and this robotic picking facility to load up the lines really is cutting edge stuff.

Many slitting lines are used to slit the coated material into smaller reels that we label printers use as our raw material

They have many slitting lines to convert the finished material (often 1.5m wide by many KMs long) into smaller reels that label printers like us can use.

Overall, it was a short but very informative visit, and I came away very impressed with their facility and approach to business.

Chilli plant update

As I’ve been blogging here and here, I’ve been on a bit of a chilli growing mission this year after last years startup effort.  Here is the current state of play, and I think I’ll get about 150-200 chillis out of this lot which will make some excellent christmas presents once picked or dried, plus some curries for my family.  There is mix of hot and mild varieties, and I’m happy to share if anyone wants some!

Mercian Labels are passionate users of Ubuntu Linux throughout our business, and since our migration to open source software we’ve found it to be much more stable and reliable that Windows, which we now only use on machines where there is isnt really a choice eg graphic design, sage accounts etc.

We hope to attend the Ubuntu in Business Event on 13 July in London to meet up with other Ubuntu Business users, and would like to hear from anyone else who is going too!  Register here – see you there.  We may speak at the event if given a chance, so would welcome any comments on what you’d like to hear about from a SME who has migrated its business to open source linux software.

I’ve been away on holiday recently and so this short review of IPEX from a labelling perspective is a little late, and therefore short.  IPEX isnt really a big labelling show, but there were some points of interest for us. Briefly:

• Inkjet still marches on some new offerings from Domino and Konica Minolta, but the quality of all the 4 colour inkjet units I saw was still not very good, and no where near as good as the Xeikon or HP or even flexo.  More work still needed, 600 dpi isnt going to cut it IMHO.
• The Xeikon 3500 was worth looking at, but curiously didnt have a conversion solution configured for labelling, it is more of a mid web packaging press, especially as the toner prices for white are significantly lower than currently offered to users such as us at Mercian Labels.
• The new Epson label printer was on show, even though its not for sale yet I understand.  I first saw a flyer for this machine in 2001, and even after all these years its just completely missed the point for me.  It runs at about 3 m/min verses the Xeikon and HP 20+ m/min ish, and even faster for continuous inkjet (albeit it with generally poor quality).  The quality is excellent though, but I still cannt see a market for the machine at all.  Shame, if it was half the price and 5 times the speed it may be viable, but in its current form I really dont think they will sell many at all.
• There was nothing new from HP in labelling that I could tell (without getting caught up in the hard core HP sales process!)

Overall, if you didnt go, I dont think you missed much, and Label Expo Europe remains the major show.  If you want a fuller labelling review of IPEX, check this out.

Barry Deri

It was announced recently that Barry Deri has rejoined Flint Inks as their technical manager, after being made redundant during the recession.  We, like many customers who have come to value Barry’s technical input very highly and were very dismayed at the very short term decision of Flint Narrow web inks to terminate this invaluable resource, a decision they finally recognised as a poor one and subsequently rehired him.  I blogged about this some time ago and have not changed my opinion since.  The economy is cyclical and we need to keep the remaining high level skills we have in UK manufacturing – they are not easily replaced and Flint has been lucky to be rehire Barry.

new AC Labels signage goes up!

The new AC Labels factory is now firmly in its stride, serving many customers with barcode labels, and today up went the first signage !

Having had some recent experience on a family members windows PC recently, and a iMac as well, I know why I have a strong preference for working on an Ubuntu linux PC.  The new distro 10.04 is great, very nice GUI, but there is one real problem with the CSS rendering in Firefox 3.6.3 it ships with in that it dosnt show the same CSS as firefox 2.8.  This is withdrawn my access to our intranet externally for me until we fix it.  Other than that, its excellent, and worked right “out of the box”.  Excellent work again from the community, thank you!

We use a lot of SNOM 300 VOIP phones at our sites, and have just cracked a way to make conference calls on them, which is not obvious or covered by the manual. If you are trying to do this:

1. Login to your phone using the web GUI via http://its.IP.x.x and select function L4 – directory, (or any function you dont use)
2. change the function tag to   F_CONFERENCE
3. save

to make a conference call,

1. call the first call, speak and put on hold by pressing the L1 line 1 button
2. dial the second number and speak to them
3. press L4 and all 3 callers are connected

A number of BSRLA members are visiting IPEX on Tuesday 18th May and meeting for some drinks and a  bite to eat in the evening in Birmingham city centre near New Street station.  If you wish to come along and join us, please email me and I’ll send you meeting directions.

I really enjoyed my day at OGGCamp in Liverpool on Saturday.  The variety of freedom of thought from the attendees was quite refreshing.  From ANPR camera monitoring and embedded linux in in car entertainment systems through to the role of women in open source culture and home automation it was a great event.

Thanks to all who organised the event, including Josh who came to work for us last summer on an open source work experience project.  Josh has got a place to read Mathematics at Oxford University I found out too – well done Josh!

I am a  proud graduate from the University of Birmingham where the final pre-election leaders debate is being held this evening in the Great Hall at 20.30.

In an idle few minutes recently I recalled 10 things to reflect on before the 2010 UK General Election next week.  I dont normally “do” politics, but once every 5 years I’ll make an exception and remember some of the things politicians have given us in the past decade that I’ve been less than impressed with…

1. The £750 million Millenium Dome
2. Cash for Honours & Cash for Questions
3. The rise of stealth taxes
4. The hunting ban
5. The huge rise in the public sector leading to a bloated government
6. The continued transfer of power from the UK parliament to the EU
7. Massive red tape in business and the demise of social responsibility and common sense
8. MPs expenses
9. The war in Iraq, the Dodgy Dossier, Dr David Kelly and the 45 minute claim
10. Boom and bust, and the £800bn public debt (and rising)

Food for thought.  Lets hope that whatever happens in the 2010s after the election it does not include such things again – its time for a change IMHO.

Enjoy the debate this evening on BBC1.

Adrian

(Opinions above are my own, not that of my employer etc!)

I’m up in Liverpool for the open source software OGGCAMP this weekend and will be there on Saturday around lunchtime.  If anyone wants to catch up with me in particular then please email me your contact details. I’d particularly like to share experiences with any other SME users of  FLOSS .  See you there!

GAMMATEX gamma sterilisation indicator-labels

PRESS RELEASE

27 April 2010

Derby, UK

DETEX manufacturer moves forward following collapse of their largest customer

AC Labels, who have previously manufactured DETEX labels for the verification of gamma radiation sterilisation, have announced the launch of the GAMMATEX™ brand following the collapse of their largest customer for that range, Sessions of York.

Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director of AC Labels said ‘It was with great sadness that we have witnessed the Administration of Sessions of York last week who supplied many satisfied customers with DETEX labels over the years. DETEX labels were commonly used in the medical and pharmaceuticals industries as verification that products had been subjected to the necessary dosage of radiation to ensure full sterilisation. Without Sessions of York to act as a route to market for us, we have been approached by their previous customers with requests to manufacture a radiation sensitive product directly. This we will happily do under the name of GAMMATEX™, with a price guarantee that will be a pleasant surprise to former customers. We already have new products in the pipeline, and will be working with current users to bring new innovations in gamma sterilisation indicating labels to the marketplace.”

A C Labels is a subsdiary of the Mercian Labels Group of Staffordshire, UK which has a portfolio of specialist labelling products including LabelLock ®™ security seals and Microembossed Labels™.

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AC Labels in Derby are recruiting for a General Manager

Following the request acquisition of AC Labels in Derby by the Mercian Labels Group on 31 March 2010, we have created a new role for a General Manager of the AC Labels operation in Derby. This new role is an exciting opportunity for a talented manager with business development skills to take day to day control of a small (10 person) niche manufacturing business who are market leaders in high volume barcode labelling with a well established customer base. This is a full-time, salaried management position that reports to the Board of the holding company, the Mercian Labels Group. You will ideally (but not necessarily) have a print background and will have the energy, self motivation and enthusiasm to take “ownership” of a new operation and guide it to long term commercial success through a “hands on” management approach. Senior level support and coaching into the role will be provided by the Directors who are very keen to secure the right individual for this exciting opportunity. Salary is negotiable and the position is available for an immediate start.

Full details are on our website with informal discussions to the Managing Director Dr Adrian Steele (adrian.steele@mercianlabels.com) on 01543 431 072

NO AGENCIES – see webpage for details.

chilli plant update - early incubation in the airing cupboard has got these off to a flying start

I’ve picked up on the open source community interest in Chilli plant growing from Alan at the Open Sourcer, and previously blogged on last years Chilli crop, and the new batch for 2010.  Growing progress is good – this is the state of this years crop.  Good curries coming next winter!

grilled asparagus

We are based in Staffordshire, home to the growers some of the best Asparagus I’ve ever tasted.  New Farm near Lichfield is our local supplier during the delicious but brief season, and last night the first crop made its way onto the dinner table from their farm shop.  Delicious!  If you havent enjoyed Asparagus for a while, get it now whilst its in season and great value.

The first job coming off the press at the new AC Labels operation in Derby

I love it when a plan comes together! (No, this is not a message from Hannibal of the A-Team!)

Pictured above are the new Top Team at AC Labels in Derby, a new subsidiary of the Mercian Labels Group with the first high quality variable barcode labels from a new factory, setup and running to produce high quality stock in just 13 days from the deal being closed. From left to right are Karen, Marge, Lee, Jason, David, Marcin, Adrian, Adam, Tim and Thomasz.

It has been a colossal effort from everybody involved, and to have the operation up and running this quickly is just fantastic, and I know has been greatly appreciated by our clients.  More business is already secured, so please keep it coming!

AC Labels specialise in medium to long run variable barcode labels and variable number labels, and are market leaders in this labelling niche with pricing that beats any thermal, xeikon or HP printed variable barcode label pricing “hand down”.  The added twist is that AC Labels can do 100% barcode verification on every label printed, delivering unparalleled quality standards (even Mercian Labels cannt do that!).

100% verified variable barcode labels off to an offshore blue chip client

And away it goes!

Well done to everybody involved in the new team, and as MD , I send my thanks and congratulations to you all!

Xeikon 3500

Well the news is out - the new Xeikon press is called the 3500 (not the 3600 I guessed!) and “width” is the new development as suggested by my informant.

“The Xeikon 3500 can run web widths of 200 to 512mm wide at speeds of up to 19.2m/min, regardless of the number of colours used.”

This takes the new press just above the productivity of the serious competition, the heavyweight WS 6000. Taking the headline capacities, at 4 colours, the WS6000 can run 317mm at 30 m/min which is 9.5 m2/minute, and the Xeikon 35000 can run 512mm x 19.2 m/minute which is 9.8 m2/minute.  Thats about a 3% improvement over the WS6000, which is nothing but a headline grabber.  However, Xeikon can now claim to offer to either match or beat both the quality and productivity of any digital labelling press.

I look forward to seeing it at IPEX.

Visit IPEX to hear more, and hopefully see one in action.

PRESS RELEASE

2 April 2010

Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

A C Labels bought by the Mercian Labels Group

Barcode labelling specialists A C Labels have been acquired by the Mercian Labels Group in an assets and goodwill deal, securing the long term supply of variable data barcode labels and the highly regarded A C Labels brand.

“A C Labels has a fantastic reputation in the marketplace as a market leader in complex variable information labelling.” said Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director of Mercian Labels, adding “We are establishing a new operation in Derby specifically to serve this demand, and are delighted with both the support shown from the client base for the acquisition, and also the opportunity to acquire the brand of A C Labels. This new subsidiary of the Mercian Labels Group complements our other speciality companies in manufacturing tamper evident security labels, Label Lock security seals and short run digital, hotfoil and flexographic labelling.”

The new company will continue to manufacture complex constructions of self adhesive labels inlcuding variable data and barcodes, serving the medical, pharma and logistics marketplaces, and is now involved in ensuring a seamless transition for existing customers of AC Labels and to secure and expand the prospects of the business in Derby.

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