Teufelberger makes no compromises when it comes to safety. This premise also applies to product labeling, because life and limb depend on Teufelberger products! The company converted its first location in the Czech Republic to OPAL LABELMANAGEMENTTM in December 2022. The family-owned company TEUFELBERGER is a diversified, international group of companies that is successful worldwide with fiber ropes, steel ropes and strapping. Innovation, continuous growth and geographical expansion are firmly anchored as goals in the company’s strategy.
Industry: Manufacturing
Applied OPAL products
System Environment
- Replacement of decentralized and manual labeling
- Centralization of data in SAP S/4HANA
- Consolidation of label templates
- Many different products and packaging sizes lead to a high number of label formats
- Centralized processes and data in SAP S/4HANA
- Simpler processes in labeling
- Reduction of label templates from 200 to 35 layouts (-82.5%)
- Reduction of operational labeling efforts by 80%.
- Decoupling between IT, data maintenance and operational labeling
Self-runner
Teufelberger has proven that OPAL’s framework approach works very well and that external service efforts can be kept to a minimum. The company completed the training, in which we explained in detail the interaction of the framework components. This training lasted only two days, benefiting from the high level of SAP expertise we found at the company. Shortly before the end of 2022, Teufelberger informed us about the successful go-live at the Czech site. OPAL LABELMANAGEMENT is used there for the labeling of over 7000 products in a wide range of sizes, variants and lengths.
Print center approach
We were surprised that Teufelberger needed only a small amount of support. So we asked the company’s IT project manager and application team why. They confirmed to us that the framework of the label solution allowed easy realization of the dynamic assignment from data and label template per order. However, consolidating the various decentralized databases and integrating the data into the central SAP took some more time. Due to the numerous and different label formats, Teufelberger opted for a print center approach in which the work preperation team provides the labels for the production job. With this solution, label materials need to be changed less frequently at the printer and label printing expertise is concentrated per site.
Print center for different label formats
Benefits of the new printing process
The IT project manager sees the integration of the label management system in SAP and thus the centralization of data and the labeling process as a key advantage over the previous solution. The high level of automation has eliminated sources of error and increased productivity. He estimates that more than 80% of the productive effort in labeling, will be saved with the new system in the future.
The label design program “BarTender” from Seagull Scientific allows Teufelberger to control the data on the label generically, depending on the product and order. Label layouts were reduced from 200 layouts to 35 layouts (-82.5%).
The head of the application team appreciates the decoupling of IT responsibilities, data management, layout creation and operational marking that the new system allows. With decoupling, responsibilities in the organization are clearly defined and the process is easier to control.
