Study: Mislabeling costs $1.31M annually from production line shutdowns

On average, US manufacturers incur losses of about $1.17 million per year as a result of production line shutdowns that stem from label-printing issues, a global survey of IT directors in manufacturing organizations has discovered. This falls slightly below the worldwide average of $1.31 million a year. The study was conducted by NiceLabel, a label design and printing software company that works hand-in-hand with the pharmaceutical industry.

The survey features 300 IT directors across the globe, 100 of which are from the US. It found that, on average, more than two-thirds of manufacturers (67%) were having to shut down their production line for more than an hour if there was a problem with label printing, with an additional 21% saying the line had to be shut down for more than 30 minutes. Recovery time was slightly faster but still problematic for US manufacturers, with just over half (51%) experiencing downtimes of 60 minutes or longer.

The study also discovered that manufacturers found themselves having to pause production lines just under six times a year, on average, due to such complications, with nearly three-quarters (77% globally and 69% in the US, respectively) saying their production line had to be paused four times or more in the past year due to labeling problems.