Case Study: Yaskawa Electric achieves automated, accurate global barcode labeling and improved traceability with BarTender

Yaskawa uses BarTender’s template library to simplify the creation of thousands of unique print-ready labels

Yaskawa Electric Co., Ltd., a global leader in motion control, robotics and inverter products, faced an inefficient, error-prone labeling process at its Yukuhashi inverter factory: thousands of unique, multilingual barcode labels were pre-printed and stored as static files, creating a proliferation of formats, heavy administrative overhead, and frequent manual errors. To address this, Yaskawa deployed BarTender, using BarTender’s Intelligent Templates and central database-driven labeling to coordinate printing with production lines.

BarTender implemented a forms-based workflow, Layers and variable data fields so a single job number, barcode scan or RFID read dynamically populates labels from a central database and prints 2–4 required labels per product to any of ~60 printers across 12 production lines. The BarTender solution reduced the number of template files to a handful, slashed administrative effort, cut human error, improved traceability across the global supply chain, and has been rolled out to sites in the US, Europe, China and India.

Yaskawa Electric

Yoshinobu Murakami

Section Manager of the Plant’s Production Engineering Division