IAE, a European manufacturer of livestock handling equipment, equestrian stabling, steel fencing and shelters, has implemented Label Cloud from NiceLabel, a global developer of label design software and label management systems.

IAE is using NiceLabel’s cloud-based Label Management System (Label Cloud) to simplify and streamline its labeling and work order documentation production, enabling it in turn to save time and resources. IAE decided to modernize their label management process to make updating this documentation easier, and to ensure it could produce labels in parallel with the documentation.

Jeremy Annable, business systems manager at IAE, said: “We were looking for a solution that could simplify the production process for users to print work in process (WIP) documents and associated labels prior to starting a new works order. It was key to us that the solution could help the user to identify and pick all materials, assemble the product and apply the appropriate labels.”

The fact that IAE was able to get their label management system in the Cloud was a key factor in their system selection process. “We’ve moved quite a few of our systems to the Cloud. The fact that we could have labeling in the Cloud as well gave us a lot more flexibility in terms of integrations and APIs,” Daniel Mycock, IT manager at IAE states. “When you’re integrating with many sources, this is the better way. Maintenance and software updates are just handled. It makes it a lot easier to manage and is more cost-effective.”

In making the choice, IAE worked with NiceLabel’s partner Cloud Printing Solutions, who introduced them to the NiceLabel team and their Label Cloud solution. NiceLabel’s Professional Services Group (PSG) assisted with the integration part of the project. The PSG team used the NiceLabel Integration system to configure integrations with IAE’s ERP system and AutoCAD. It then used the NiceLabel application builder to rapidly build the printing forms.

With NiceLabel, IAE has been able to move from a home-grown system with manual workarounds to a fully-integrated labeling solution. “Implementing NiceLabel solved a lot of IT problems. We don’t have the security implications we had with the previous system,” comments Annable. “As it stood before, we were at a dead-end. Now we’ve got control over the design of the labels, how we do it and which printer we put them to.” IAE can also make label changes much faster, since they’re done in-house.

NiceLabel also gives IAE the platform they need to plan for the future. Annable explains, “We’ve now got something to grow into. We’ve implemented forward-looking systems that are supported with the necessary controls, and we have all of these systems working together.”

Ken Moir, NiceLabel VP of marketing said: “It’s great to see the level of flexibility and enhanced operational efficiency that IAE has already been able to achieve with our cloud labeling solution. We are confident that as it scales its business in the future, being able to make use of NiceLabel’s technology platform will prove to be a still more significant benefit than it does today.”  

Detailed information on how NiceLabel helped IAE create a fully-integrated labeling solution is available at https://www.nicelabel.com/iae.