The solution for cookware maker World Kitchen was a printer with verification technology that ensures shipping labels are 100 percent scannable, 100 percent of the time.
Peter Bradley is an award-winning career journalist with more than three decades of experience in both newspapers and national business magazines. His credentials include seven years as the transportation and supply chain editor at Purchasing Magazine and six years as the chief editor of Logistics Management.
The Problem: For World Kitchen, a manufacturer of cookware and kitchen tools, faulty bar codes were fast becoming a big headache—mainly because they were costing the company a lot of money. The problem was chargebacks from customers when shipments arrived with unreadable labels. Some of World Kitchen's clients have highly automated receiving operations that rely on bar codes to function smoothly. Because any failure to read a bar code required costly manual processing, these customers often hit World Kitchen with compliance penalties if a label failed to meet their requirements.As for the source of the problem, it was typically one of two things. Sometimes, it was the label itself. The labels produced by the printers World Kitchen was using at the time were easily damaged during warehouse handling. Terry Moore, senior network administrator for World Kitchen, says the trip through the material handling system at the company's DCs often caused smearing or tearing of the labels. "The quality was not always the best," he says.
Other times, the problem arose from a misprinted bar code. Although World Kitchen's printers were performing relatively well, there was inevitably the occasional error. And with a high-volume operation, even a failure rate of 0.1 percent adds up quickly. "As a result, we were getting substantial chargebacks," Moore says. All told, the company was paying thousands of dollars a month in compliance penalties.
The Players
Customer: World Kitchen Primary business: Manufacturing and marketing bakeware, dinnerware, kitchen and household tools, rangetop cookware, and cutlery, including well-known brands like CorningWare, Corelle, and Baker's Secret Headquarters: Rosemont, Ill.
Supplier: Printronix Solution: Printronix T5000r thermal printers with the Online Data Validation (ODV) option
The Solution: A few years back, World Kitchen went shopping for a printing system that would produce more durable labels and address the readability problem. After reviewing its alternatives, the company selected Printronix's T5000r high-speed thermal printers with integrated verification technology known as the Online Data Validation (ODV) option.
Not only do the printers produce higher-quality labels than their predecessors did, but the integrated verification technology has eliminated problems with misprinted codes. Essentially, the technology allows World Kitchen to set the symbology specifications it wants for bar codes and then verifies that every bar code meets that standard. (The American National Standards Institute has a grading structure for bar-code print quality, with ratings that range from A to F. World Kitchen has set its verifiers to reject any bar code below a B.)
In daily operations, the Printronix system makes use of a scanner mounted in the printer that scans every label as it's printed. Should the printer produce a label that fails to meet the standard, the system sends a signal to the printer to overstrike that label and print a new one.
Andy Scherz, director of product marketing for Printronix, which specializes in printing technology for business applications, says the verification technology addresses the realities of industrial printing. While companies like Printronix have made great strides in reducing failure rates, he says, the rate will never get to zero. "You can have a blemish in the ribbon, something in the environment, or a wood chip in the label stock. Plus, print heads wear out," he explains. But in-line validation stops the problem at the source, he says. "What you get is 100 percent good labels."
World Kitchen originally bought 12 of the printers, installing eight in its distribution facility in Monee, Ill., and four in its DC in Greencastle, Pa. It has since bought four more for use in a DC it added last year with its acquisition of Snapware, a supplier of food storage containers.
Today, World Kitchen DC managers can be confident that every label that leaves the printer for the DC floor meets the established standard. The investment has paid off for World Kitchen. In the years since it switched to the Printronix technology, the company has not had chargebacks as a result of label issues. The printers "paid for themselves relatively fast," says Moore.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The U.S. manufacturing sector has become an engine of new job creation over the past four years, thanks to a combination of federal incentives and mega-trends like nearshoring and the clean energy boom, according to the industrial real estate firm Savills.
While those manufacturing announcements have softened slightly from their 2022 high point, they remain historically elevated. And the sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of the November U.S. presidential election, the company said in its September “Savills Manufacturing Report.”
From 2021 to 2024, over 995,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs were announced, with two thirds in advanced sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries, semiconductors, clean energy, and biomanufacturing. After peaking at 350,000 news jobs in 2022, the growth pace has slowed, with 2024 expected to see just over half that number.
But the ingredients are in place to sustain the hot temperature of American manufacturing expansion in 2025 and beyond, the company said. According to Savills, that’s because the U.S. manufacturing revival is fueled by $910 billion in federal incentives—including the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—much of which has not yet been spent. Domestic production is also expected to be boosted by new tariffs, including a planned rise in semiconductor tariffs to 50% in 2025 and an increase in tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%.
Certain geographical regions will see greater manufacturing growth than others, since just eight states account for 47% of new manufacturing jobs and over 6.3 billion square feet of industrial space, with 197 million more square feet under development. They are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee.
Across the border, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has also seen “revolutionary” growth driven by nearshoring strategies targeting U.S. markets and offering lower-cost labor, with a workforce that is now even cheaper than in China. Over the past four years, that country has launched 27 new plants, each creating over 500 jobs. Unlike the U.S. focus on tech manufacturing, Mexico focuses on traditional sectors such as automative parts, appliances, and consumer goods.
Looking at the future, the U.S. manufacturing sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of November’s presidential election, Savills said. That’s because both candidates favor protectionist trade policies, and since significant change to federal incentives would require a single party to control both the legislative and executive branches. Rather than relying on changes in political leadership, future growth of U.S. manufacturing now hinges on finding affordable, reliable power amid increasing competition between manufacturing sites and data centers, Savills said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.