Incorrectly labeled or packaged products can lead to customer dissatisfaction, inspection failures, and an array of other business-ending consequences. For our client, the lack of accuracy in the packaging of their products meant increasing customer complaints that parts were missing when their packages arrived.
What obstacle was our client facing?
When multiple items are being packaged into one box there are a number of boxes that have to be checked before the package can be sent out. Are all of the items in the box? Are they arranged correctly to ensure safe delivery? A renown lighting systems company – producing ceiling lights, light poles, and other large lighting fixtures, mainly for construction products – approached us with a climbing 7.5% customer complaints rate. Their customers were receiving packages with missing parts at a frequency that was significantly hurting their business. The labor required to check every box, combined with human error, were working against our client. They needed an automated system to inspect every single box or they were not going to make it much longer.
Are you losing business because of packaging inspection failures?
The PDA Way
We brought our client a team of engineers who developed a vision system to inspect their packages:
- The process would involve installing customized camera equipment into the company’s packaging equipment.
- At the same time, the accompanying software would be custom developed to understand what products need to be in what boxes, then to prevent incorrect boxes from being sealed and transported to shipping.
What was the outcome?
After implementing the vision system our client experienced a halt in customer complaints. They went from a 7.5% customer complaint rating to a 0% customer complaint rating immediately. This also answers the question of whether it was a customer problem (i.e. they lost or damaged the product after delivery) versus a packaging problem (it was clearly the latter). Another sign of success: our client purchased an addition 4 vision systems since they implemented the first.
