American Label prides itself on being first. In 1967, the Salt Lake City company produced the first pressure sensitive labels manufactured in the state of Utah. In 2002, American Label became the first flexographic label producer in the state to adopt direct-to-plate imaging. Today, after nearly 40 years in business, American Label has some 35 employees operating eight narrow web presses in a 20,000 square foot facility. The company is one of the leading label manufacturers in the Intermountain West, and continues a long tradition of top quality and solid service.
But even Jim Palamides, the American Label General Manager, would be the first to admit that sometimes a business decision must be rethought to stay on the right track. This was true in the case of the print business management system that American Label used until just a few years ago. Palamides became concerned that the computer system being used by American Label was hard to work with—both for him, and for his employees on the front line with customers. “The system we had was written originally for sheetfed offset printing, and adapted to roll-fed flexography and labels after it had been on the market for a few years. When I found out that my CSRs had to go through 11 different screens just to give a customer a quote, I knew it was time to make a change.” Then, at an FTA forum, Palamides found himself at a dinner sitting next to Ken Meinhardt, the president of Tailored Solutions, and one of the authors of Label Traxx. “By the time the meal was over, I knew that Label Traxx was exactly what we needed,” says Palamides.
American Label moved from their older software to Label Traxx in 2002 and has never looked back. Asked about any problems with transitioning from one software system to another, Palamides said: “Moving from a manual workflow to a computer-based workflow can be difficult, and employees often resist making the change. But moving from a computer-based workflow that everyone has learned to deal with (albeit with considerable difficulty) can be even more disruptive and traumatic.” According to Palamides, “The biggest challenge was convincing employees that the change would be good. Once they understood that Label Traxx would make their lives easier, and we went ahead with the installation, they began to see the benefits in just a few days. Tailored Solutions was able to transfer our old files into Label Traxx, which made it much easier to compare the old and new systems, and easier for employees to realize the benefits of making the change.”
The American Label Label Traxx installation has terminals on the shop floor and scattered elsewhere throughout the operations. Says Palamides: “Our operating philosophy is to give people the tools they need to do their jobs. In our fast-paced society, customers want instant service, and a user-friendly, responsive computer system is a necessity, not a luxury. We find that if it takes more than two or three minutes to prepare a quotation, our customers may simply go to another printer.”
One of the more unusual aspects of how American Label operates lies in how sales personnel use the Label Traxx system. The three American Label outside salespersons are each paired with a customer service representative, and either one can handle customer inquiries or quotations. Sales personnel have their own terminals, and can log on to Label Traxx from their home computers rather than return to the office after a busy day with customers, or they can log on while at a customer site. Most sales personnel do their own estimates, and everyone is required to prepare estimates in a standard way. Brett Siebenberg, one of the American Label outside sales representatives, says: “Label Traxx helped me learn the label industry, since I came from an entirely different business. The program is put together well, and I found it easy to learn. If you can log on, you can use the system.”
American Label takes full advantage of a Label Traxx feature which links directly to Fasson and enables the company to order and receive label stock effortlessly and efficiently. Talking about how the company manages its inventory, Palamides says: “We barcode all our inventory, and doing so, coupled with our use of Fasson Connect, probably saves us from 30 to 60 minutes per day, either in our purchasing or receiving areas. We just enter our purchase orders into Label Traxx, they are transmitted automatically to Avery Dennison, and we receive a confirmation. We are automatically notified when our stock ships. Until Label Traxx installed this feature, we had to do everything manually.”
The American Label IT specialist, Steve Quinn, Sr., provides a different perspective on the Label Traxx installation. He says: “Label Traxx is really network friendly—and that is very important in the world of computers today. Also, we found that the users adapted to Label Traxx very well—even novice computer users pick up on things with only a few minutes of training. The system we had before was cumbersome and the transition to Label Traxx was very smooth. Data collection is very simple to use. Press operators use the keyboard to enter job information, but they scan roll stock to keep the inventory records. The Fasson Connect system works particularly well.”
Jim Palamides, in talking about managing American Label, says: “I like to look at the job costing reports every day, and check up on the profitability of individual jobs. Label Traxx makes it easier to stay on top on a business that seems to get more competitive and more complex every year.”
