Understand Complexities to Drive NetSuite Labeling in Manufacturing

This article is relevant if you are looking to use NetSuite to generate complex product labels especially those that may need to comply with regulatory bodies.

Background

During a recent implementation, we lead our client, an FDA-approved Class III medical device manufacturer, away from the Infor Visual ERP to NetSuite to embrace fully integrated sales, order management, manufacturing, and accounting operations. Devices that fall under the Class III distinction usually sustain or support life, are implanted or present a potential unreasonable risk of illness or injury. In our client’s environment, they produced infection disease test kits that can be used in the field without the need for expensive reading equipment. In general, the need to address the regulations, especially during manufacturing, demanded sensitivity to compliance practices.

To produce part labeling, the client was spending over $50,000 USD a year to use a software package from a company called EnLabel. While the opportunity to address replacing the labeling software was presented early in the implementation, we attacked the challenge after the client was on NetSuite running its operation smoothly. We then focused on how to help the client avoid the $50,000 annual fee and print these labels right from NetSuite. While another NetSuite partner in the community discusses printing labels in this manner, there is no discussion of how this is done.

There were some key lessons learned.

Desired New Processing Requirements

In the client’s Infor Visual ERP system, there was no integration to the label software. The entire operation is organized around batch manufacturing with lot numbers as the key identifier holding work product together. Thus, operators would manually go into the software and hand-key the lot number to generate the labels. The operation was exacerbated because there were intermediate parts that needed to have printed labels — thus this took time and was error-prone demanding costly label quality and accountability practices.

Naturally, we linked the label printing requirement to become a button on each respective Work Order — the place where manufacturing was planned. We also generated a custom “Manufacturing Run” (a topic for another article) record that would tie together the batch narrative of the many work orders that would be required to generate the lot numbers according to the planned operation. Thus, we had all we need to generate labels as part of work order processing before the actual assembly was finished. This operation saved time and reduced the concern for errors.

Click the image to see an expanded view.

Challenge for NetSuite Driven Small Format Sized Labels

I have written a number of articles about how the license-free tool, “Content Renderer Engine (CRE)”, is used to create a wide range of NetSuite-driven content. Here is an article going back to 2015 where I introduce the concept of the tool.

In our conventional way of approaching printed output challenges, we leverage NetSuite’s PDF print engine (BFO) to get our output. However, when the size of the output label becomes small, the nature of the PDF engine loses print quality. This is not acceptable.

Thus, we had to move printed output to Zebra-based printers. These printers use a special language called “ZPL” or Zebra Print Language to generate output. I write about it with a corresponding article, Learn How To Create Zebra ZPL Barcode Labels from NetSuite. The same Content Renderer Engine is used to output a “ZPL Command Set”.

Organizing the Label Replacement Effort

The work required collaboration with the client to catalog their existing label stock with the different printer output formats. Some output was black-and-white where others had to be in color. During traditional label development, we expect to output to the PDF file and then be considered done. However, we needed to print to the actual printer device during development to confirm our layouts and ensure we met quality standards. Indeed, we discovered that some labels had to go to Zebra as they visually looked okay via PDF, but our bar code scanners would not read the physical outputted labels.

The project was conducted with three professionals on our team to help get some throughput on the number of labels to be developed and the collaboration and respective testing with the client. Naturally, once we were in production with the solution, refinements were requested — yet in due course, the solution was completely stable. The client is highly satisfied.

Save Money and Time with NetSuite Driven Label Outputs

NetSuite out of the box gives you a platform to solve challenging label solutions. But the built-in print tools often do not provide sufficient data reach nor can the solution handle well output that is small in size. While you can revert to SuiteScript to program label development, it’s much better to work with tools that facilitate the process. Thus our Content Renderer Engine (now supporting SuiteQL) is available to all of our clients without license charge. Many clients ask us to solve a specific label challenge for them and they use that as a template to learn the tools to help themselves going forward.

Indeed, by understanding NetSuite’s platform capacity, you can save significant time and money. If you found this article relevant, feel free to sign up for notifications to new articles as I post them. If you are ready to tackle your NetSuite labeling requirements, let’s have a conversation.

Marty Zigman

Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn - YouTube