Jun 04, 2026 by Matt Nichol
In manufacturing, waste rarely shows up where you expect it. It’s easy to spot a major fault or a line stoppage. What’s harder to see is the slow, steady impact of small errors – particularly in coding and labelling – quietly chipping away at your margin.
An incorrect use-by date. A batch code that doesn’t match the product. A label applied to the wrong SKU during a changeover.
Individually, they seem like minor errors. But across a shift, a week or a full production cycle, coding errors add up to something much more significant and can damage your bottom line.
Image credit: Patpitchaya
Coding errors don’t sit neatly in one category of waste. They cut across multiple parts of the operation at once.
A single miscoded product can trigger rework, which pulls operators away from the line. That delay disrupts throughput. And if the issue isn’t caught in time, the product may never make it to the retailer or consumer at all.
This is where the real cost starts to build.
In many cases, the product itself is only a fraction of the loss. The bigger impact comes from the disruption around it – lost production time, additional handling and the knock-on effects across scheduling and delivery.
In food & beverage manufacturing, the stakes are even higher. Coding isn’t just about identification; it’s tied directly to compliance, traceability and consumer safety.
A simple error can escalate into a rejected shipment or, worst case, a recall.
What makes coding errors so costly is that they rarely occur in isolation.
Take a typical scenario: a line is running multiple SKUs with frequent changeovers. An operator selects the wrong message, fails to update a variable field,orworse, enters it incorrectly (for example a ‘2’ instead of a ‘1’). The product is coded, packed, and continues down the line.
The error isn’t picked up immediately.
By the time it is, it’s no longer a single item that’s impacted. You’re dealing with a batch – potentially palletised and ready for dispatch.
At that point, your options are limited. Rework may be possible, but it’s time-consuming, labour-intensive, and, in many cases, simply not viable. The product is scrapped (which also costs money) and the time spent producing it is lost.
What started as a momentary error becomes a measurable hit to both cost and efficiency.
Image credit: Afry Harvy
Beyond the immediate loss, coding errors create ongoing friction in the operation.
Stopping a line to investigate an issue interrupts flow and reduces overall equipment effectiveness. Even short stoppages can have a cascading impact, particularly in high-speed environments where output is tightly scheduled.
There’s also the human factor. Many coding processes still rely on manual inputs – selecting jobs, entering data and visually checking outputs. These steps introduce variability, especially during busy periods or complex changeovers. Operators can end up spending time correcting issues rather than keeping the line moving.
Over time, this shifts the role of the production team from running an efficient process to managing exceptions. And that’s where efficiency starts to erode.
Not all coding errors stay within the factory doors. Incorrect or unreadable codes can lead to rejected shipments, retailer chargebacks or strained supplier relationships. In industries with strict labelling requirements, they can also raise compliance concerns, particularly where allergen or date information is involved.
These are costs that don’t always appear in production reports, but they have a direct impact on the business. Lost shelf space, reduced trust, and increased scrutiny from retail partners all carry long-term consequences.
Image credit: BlackSalmon
Despite the risks, coding errors remain common in many manufacturing environments.
A big part of the issue is how coding is treated within the process.
In many cases, it’s still seen as a separate task, rather than a fully integrated part of production.
This often results in disconnected systems, where coding equipment operates independently of production data. Messages are created and selected manually, with limited validation before printing.
The final check is often visual.
While that approach might work in low-complexity environments, as product ranges expand and production speeds increase, it becomes much harder to maintain consistency.
Most manufacturers already have some form of inspection in place. Vision inspection, barcode scanners, or manual checks can be used to identify errors before product leaves the line.
But inspection alone doesn’t solve the problem.
If an error is caught after the product has been coded, packedor palletised, the waste has already occurred and the cost is already locked in.
The real opportunity lies earlier in the process, removing the conditions that allow errors to happen in the first place.
This is where a more integrated approach to coding and labelling becomes important.
By connecting coding systems with production data, through platforms like iDSnet, manufacturers can move away from manual inputs and towards automated control.
Instead of relying on operators to select the correct message, the system assigns it automatically based on the product being run. Variable data is populated directly from source systems, reducing the risk of human error.
At the same time, automated inspection and validation can verify every code in-line, ensuring accuracy before the product moves further down the process.
The result is a closed-loop system where coding is no longer a point of risk, but a controlled and consistent part of production. That’s precisely how smart factories are born.
Manufacturers including AIF have already moved to automated coding and labelling integrated with their ERP systems, reducing manual intervention and supporting growth into major supermarket supply.
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One of the common assumptions around integrated coding and compliance systems is that they’re only relevant for large-scale manufacturers with highly complex operations.
But when it comes to coding errors, size doesn’t necessarily reduce risk.
Smaller manufacturers still face the same challenges around traceability, compliance, retailer expectations and manual error – particularly as SKU ranges grow and production demands increase. In many cases, a single coding mistake can have an even greater financial impact on a smaller operation with tighter margins and fewer resources to absorb waste or rework.
The good news is that integration doesn’t need to mean enterprise-scale infrastructure.
Solutions such as Matthews iDSnet Express are designed specifically for smaller manufacturers, providing a simpler and more cost-effective way to improve coding control, reduce manual processes and support compliance without the complexity of a fully customised system.
When coding is managed this way, the impact is immediate. Errors are prevented rather than corrected. Lines run with fewer interruptions, and operators spend less time troubleshooting.
More importantly, waste is reduced at its source.
That has a direct effect on margin – not just through lower scrap rates, but through improved efficiency, reduced downtime and stronger compliance outcomes.
Image credit: Yulka3ice
Coding errors are easy to underestimate.They can be small, frequent and often handled quickly in the moment. But across an operation, they represent a significant and ongoing source of waste.
For manufacturers under pressure to do more with less, that’s a problem worth solving. Because the real opportunity isn’t in managing coding errors more efficiently; it’s in designing them out of the process altogether.
Talk to our specialist team about how to manage coding errors out of your production line.
