Cavicchio Greenhouses Cultivates Operational Efficiency & 100% Label Accuracy with SENTINEL

Cavicchio Greenhouses Cultivates Operational Efficiency & 100% Label Accuracy with SENTINEL

TOPICS: PRINT AUTOMATION, ENTERPRISE LABEL MANAGEMENT, AGRICULTURA & HORTICULTURA

Cavicchio Greenhouses, Inc. is New England’s most comprehensive horticultural grower and distributor. They cultivate and sustain over 250 acres of annuals, perennials, and nursery stock, complemented by a premium selection of soil mixes, stone, and landscape supplies.

With over 20,000 products and 25 different types of labels—including nursery tags, and product, shipping, and inventory labels—Cavicchio Greenhouses faced challenges with a tedious label design process that took up to eight hours to complete and label errors due to manual data entry. The labeling process involved three employees designing and managing labels and 50 employees accessing and printing labels, but only from dedicated workstations.

Cavicchio Greenhouses used LABELVIEW for some labeling processes, but also designed and printed labels from a customized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that utilized Crystal Reports, which lacked What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design capabilities. Working in an interface that didn’t accurately reflect the appearance of a printed label caused label waste and led their label design team to use formatting workarounds. A common scenario was someone printing 100 nursery tags only to see the barcode was cut off, meaning they now had 100 bad tags to be reprinted. The label design team would then go back into Crystal Reports and try placing the barcode in slightly different spots to ensure it was aligned and printed properly.

They wanted a more robust and modern solution to simplify label design and printing from any computer and any Windows logins—without concerns about driver settings changing—and allow employees to easily print labels from any workstation on their network.

Solution

As an existing customer, Cavicchio Greenhouses approached TEKLYNX directly, while also evaluating Loftware NiceLabel, to determine the best solution to fit their growing business needs. The advanced features of CODESOFT barcode label design software and flexibility of data transmission to SENTINEL print automation software led Cavicchio Greenhouses to choose to stick with TEKLYNX over competitors. “My developers loved SENTINEL. They loved the fact that to print a label, we would simply have to insert a record into a SQL table,” said Jim Petrillo, IT Manager at Cavicchio Greenhouses.

Cavicchio Greenhouses quickly moved forward with implementing CODESOFT and SENTINEL to address their labeling challenges. The deployment process took about two weeks and was described as a smooth process by Petrillo. “During the implementation and our go-live phase, TEKLYNX support was there to help us overcome any issues we had with CODESOFT and SENTINEL. Every issue or question we had was quickly resolved,” explained Petrillo.

SENTINEL integrates with their Sage 500 ERP system (formerly Sage ERP MAS 500), which is built with .NET and Microsoft SQL Server technology. Cavicchio Greenhouses has web and mobile applications that interact with this ERP database to collect information from print users. SENTINEL monitors their custom SQL table and automatically initiates print jobs when new records are added.

With SENTINEL, Cavicchio Greenhouses can print to an unlimited number of their Zebra, SATO, Datamax, and Toshiba printers across their facilities. With over 4,000 native label printer drivers developed by TEKLYNX, they get optimized printer performance no matter the printer brand, family, or model.

Results

Moving to CODESOFT and SENTINEL resulted in a remarkable achievement of 100% labeling accuracy for Cavicchio Greenhouses. This was an improvement over the previous systems, showing the benefit of consolidating software and the precision of TEKLYNX enterprise labeling solutions.

CODESOFT’s WYSIWYG interface stopped users from having to learn complex formatting workarounds and allowed them to concentrate instead on label design and reduce waste from reprints. The time required to design a new label from start to finish was reduced from eight hours to two with only two employees involved.

The implementation of SENTINEL led to a 20% increase in print speed and 50% improvement in production efficiency. The enhanced speed not only accelerated labeling, but also contributed to a 10% increase in customer satisfaction, fostering positive relationships with clients. By centralizing printing, Cavicchio Greenhouses also gained the flexibility to print labels from any workstation on their network. This shift eliminated the need for dedicated computers and Windows logins for label printing, streamlining the process.

The reliability of CODESOFT and SENTINEL also drastically decreased technical support time by an impressive 90%, ensuring smoother operations and a positive return on investment. Petrillo said, “Our solution has been extremely robust. Once we ironed out the minor issues we had during the first couple of weeks, we haven’t had any downtime or technical issues in the past 18 months!”

“TEKLYNX is proud to have played a key role in modernizing Cavicchio Greenhouses’ labeling environment. The successful implementation of CODESOFT and SENTINEL reflects our commitment to providing enterprise-level solutions that simplify complex workflows. As their partner, we’re dedicated to supporting their ongoing success and ensuring our solutions continue to meet and exceed their evolving needs,” states Doug Niemeyer, President & General Manager at TEKLYNX Americas.

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