Printronix L5000 Provides High-Resolution Bar Code Printing on Continuous-Form Tyvek Labels

The Sherrill Company is a privately owned manufacturer of high-quality upholstered furniture products that are sold in major furniture stores across the country. The company has been in business for more than 50 years, employs approximately 1,500 craftsmen and has divisions in the Hickory and High Point areas of North Carolina.

BUSINESS PROBLEM
Sherrill wanted to add bar codes to its upholstery division's "piece ticket" label forms, which are created using an IBM 6262 band printer on pre-printed Tyvek labels. The Tyvek forms, packed with piece ticket labels, are used for worker piecework payments, production control, inventory, shipping and product identification of a specific piece of furniture. Sherrill conducted a needs analysis, determining its current band printer was ineffective in meeting its needs for reduced maintenance costs and increased production in the printing of bar code labels. In a product comparison analysis, some printers tested required Sherrill to reformat its labels, which was not compatible with these business requirements.

PRINTRONIX SOLUTION
The Printronix L5000 laser printer met all The Sherrill Company's requirements for printing small, high-quality bar codes in a variety of font sizes on continuous form media. The L5000's unique DuraFusion printing process, which uses light rather than heat to fuse the toner to the label, allowed sufficient high-resolution printing of the smaller font text and 6 digit bar codes on the Tyvek media. No other printer surveyed by Sherrill could print on Tyvek. With the L5000, Sherrill was able to retain the size of its original forms, yet greatly improve throughput and quality on each individual piece ticket, while reducing costs. The L5000 prints the production label forms in batches of approximately 1,000 per run, averaging more than 200,000 forms per year. Over the past five years, Sherrill has produced millions of piece ticket labels — printed exactly the way it wants them.

CLIENT REACTION
"Picking the L5000 was a simple decision. No other printer could do it all."
Steve Hager MIS Director