Manufacturing Case Study

Transformer Manufacturer

This customer offers turnkey solutions for electrical transmission and distribution applications. Products range from large transformers, switchgear to circuit breakers. They offer expertise for transmission projects and have solutions for renewable energy grid connection.

Some of the company's suppliers manufacture large components that are shipped to their UK transformer assembly site. After building and testing the transformers are dismantled and shipped overseas before being re-assembled at their ultimate destination. Identification of individual components is, therefore, of paramount importance.

The company needed to find a way for their suppliers to label every component with lots of detailed information, such as part numbers, batch codes, drawing numbers etc. Some of the information needed to be in barcode format.

They investigated several labelling options. However, because many components are large castings it was practically impossible to find a self-adhesive label that would adhere to the rough, greasy surfaces and withstand the severe knocks and abrasion of a heavy engineering workshop. An additional problem was that some of the castings would need to be painted whilst still labelled. This paint process would obliterate data on labels.

To solve this difficult application Zygology Systems developed a special, highly durable, synthetic tag that is self-fastening and can be attached to lugs on the castings with ease; a concept similar to the way in which Garden Centres use tags to identify plants. The ZSL tags, containing perforations and cut-outs, are manufactured on rolls and printed, at each of the suppliers, on Zebra Z4M t hermal transfer printers using tough Zygology Systems Resin ribbon.