A shift prints ten thousand labels; nine thousand eight hundred end up on product. Where are the other two hundred? In most plants there is no answer, and the question is not asked: scrap is treated as normal, the number is rounded, work continues.
Yet every one of those two hundred labels carries a valid code. The verification system recognises them and says "genuine". Stuck onto a counterfeit, the system will still say "genuine" — because the code really is genuine.
An unaccounted label is the source of a real code for a fake product.
Where the gap forms
Loss accumulates at three points, and all three are ordinary. The problem is not that they are ordinary; it is that they are not counted.
- Print setup: the labels that run through while colour and position are dialled in.
- Application faults: units applied crooked, torn, or jammed in the machine.
- Roll ends: the strip left over that does not complete an order.
Three steps to measuring it
Keeping account requires no new equipment. What it requires is that every roll has an identity and that three numbers are recorded: how many codes were written to the roll, how many were applied to product, how many were destroyed. If the three do not add up to the codes on the roll, the difference is out in the open.
The second step is recording destruction. If scrap goes into a bin and that is the end of it, the numbers will not add up. A document is written, stating which range from which roll was destroyed, and the document itself is uploaded — not its number, the document. When an auditor asks, nobody goes looking through folders.
The third step is tying the gap to a threshold. Every plant has its own normal scrap rate; what matters is not that the rate is low but that it is steady. If it doubles in one shift, there is something there to look at.
What the number is for
The count of unaccounted codes reduces counterfeiting risk to a single figure. As that figure approaches zero, the chance of a fake product carrying a genuine code falls. It may not reach zero — it does not need to. It needs to be known.
Why a roll needs an identity
The first obstacle to keeping account is that the roll has no name. On an unnamed roll you know how many codes were written but not which shift, which line or which job used them. When a gap appears, there is nowhere to look.
Giving a roll an identity takes no new system; a number written on the roll and matched to the work order is enough. From that moment the gap is traced by looking at a single roll rather than the whole plant.
Setting the threshold
Every plant has its own normal scrap rate, and it varies with line speed, material and product type. Borrowing a threshold from another plant's figure results either in constant alarms or none at all. The right path is to measure for a few weeks and see your own range.
- Thresholds are set per product type; one rate does not cover them all.
- Print-setup scrap is counted separately: it left the roll but never became a code.
- Look per shift; a daily average hides the deviation.
- If a threshold changes, the reason is written down.
Why the document itself, not its number
Recording the number of a destruction document says the document exists; it does not say what the document states. When an auditor asks, the number points to a folder, and that folder is usually in another building. Upload the document itself and the question is answered as it is asked.
If the gap is unknown it is not zero; it is simply unmeasured.