BarTender and Microsoft Dynamics Business Central create agile labeling system, enable rapid change management

Founded in 1968, the Winson Group is a privately owned Australian business comprised of two companies: Signet, a distributor of warehouse consumables, including packaging, cleaning supplies and PPE; and insignia, specializing in labelling, coding & data capture solutions for full supply chain traceability. Winson Group employs approximately 300 people, with facilities located in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Townsville.

BarTender® software is integrated with Winson Group’s ERP, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, managing labelling across the entire business.

The challenge

Winson Group uses BarTender in a varied set of labeling applications, each with its own set of challenges.

Item and pallet identification

Each product received into the company’s facilities requires Winson-specific identifiers and barcode labels. BarTender generates these labels from data housed in Microsoft Dynamics Business Central to ensure accuracy of product identification.

Dispatch and carton labelling

Winson Group generates 3,000 – 5,000 dispatch labels daily. Each label carries the freight carrier-specific information that allows product tracing from dispatch to delivery.

Repacking

Products which require packing into smaller or larger containers before sale to the end user are labelled and identified with barcodes for fast and accurate order picking.

Bin code labelling

BarTender prints bin code labels by connecting to data from Dynamics Business Central and BarTender.

Manufacturing

insignia converts and prints labels from their national manufacturing facilities in Brisbane and Melbourne, with the raw materials used requiring labelling before and after production. Signet manufactures a range of flexible films, inks, aerosol products, and industrial signage, with each product requiring a label.

Item identification

Both insignia and Signet label stock line and custom items post-manufacturing to prepare them for an internal transfer to the required warehouse.

The solution

Winson Group chose BarTender because of its flexibility — with its ability to accept XML and Web Service calls, and its JSON support, it can integrate with virtually any third-party ERP, warehousing or manufacturing system.

Winson Group uses label printers from a variety of brands, including Zebra, Honeywell, Datamax-O’Neil and Bixolon, as well as automated print and apply systems by Domino. BarTender and its Drivers by Seagull™ enable a seamless print experience from brand to brand.

Online documentation and support from BarTender’s support team has allowed Winson Group to easily migrate to newer versions of BarTender and implement enhanced features as they are released. BarTender is so straightforward that Winson’s own Help Desk staff have been able to provide the company substantial deployment support.

Benefits

“BarTender has offered Winson Group flexibility and agility to manage dynamic and ever-changing labelling and identification,” said Alan Webster, General Manager Information Technology. “Often there are changes to a label’s data, such as item or freight tracking information, and we are able to quickly adapt our labelling to suit.”

BarTender’s powerful Integration Platform provides seamless automation of labelling, integrating with Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. And Winson Group uses BarTender’s Librarian to enable standardization of their processes across all company sites, providing centralized and secure management of all label templates, increasing consistency and accuracy.

Winson Group’s plans include leveraging the improvements to the web-based Print Portal and Print Station in BarTender 2021 to help drive new IT initiatives. The company is transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure that includes using OneDrive and SharePoint to share labels across multiple network directories.

“Print Portal will allow us to access our labelling systems using a web-based application,” said Alan Webster, General Manager Information Technology, “instead of via a remote desktop client. With Librarian we can centralize and standardize all labels across the business, storing them in managed databases.” Labelling will be secure, backed up and version-controlled, accessible at all the company’s sites throughout the country.

The Result

BarTender’s continuous investment into software development offers Winson Group the opportunity to stay up to date with current technologies and plan for the future. The agility that BarTender offers enables Winson Group to quickly adapt and make changes to labelling processes when needed.

“BarTender’s best-in-class development and product upgrades has allowed us to future-proof our labelling.”