Brady Labs has announced that its thermal transfer labelling systems eliminate unreadable, smudged or faded labels, which can represent a fatal flaw in a laboratory data trail.
Indecipherable handwriting, crowded because of limited space, makes hand-written labels notoriously hard to interpret and cannot be read by machine.
Handwriting inks are also particularly prone to smearing when handled and to fading after long-term storage, while any contact with chemicals risks vital information dissolving away.
Even printed labels, if created using incompatible print media, can suffer from similar problems.
Brady's thermal transfer labelling technology offers 72 combinations of labels and print ribbons to ensure maximum legibility and permanence under all conditions.
Crisp, clear and readable text at sizes from four-point upwards can be printed at speeds of up to 70 labels per second.
Brady supplies only own-brand labels and ribbons and offers full technical support to ensure the correct match for particular storage conditions.
Barcodes are the key to compatibility with laboratory information management systems and other data systems, and Brady printing technology is said to yield the good contrast between black and white bars needed for 100 per cent decoding.
Using these systems, two-dimensional barcodes remain readable even if as much as 30 per cent of the printed area has been accidentally destroyed or removed.