Future bright for high-tech label sector, says expert
products such as electronic self-adjusting sell-by labels should
create a lasting boom in the high-tech label market, argues Peter
Harrop from technology analyst IDTechEx.
He predicts that the labelling industry will have about ten years of booming new label markets in RFID.
"RFID chips are made using photolithography but gradually all this will be replaced with printed transistor circuits," said Dr Peter Harrop from technology analyst IDTechEx. "These are being made experimentally and some are now in pilot production, at companies such as Plastic Logic in the UK, with ink jet and spin coating techniques sometimes with some photolithography."
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, which hooks miniature antennas up to tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance, is being driven hard by retailers such as Metro, which see RFID as the natural replacement of industry's current bar code-based tracking systems. This will allow companies to automatically track inventory throughout an entire supply chain.
Information from RFID-tagged cases on a pallet can be read automatically using fixed, mobile or handheld readers rather than requiring individual bar code scanning.
But as with barcodes in their maturity, these RFID circuits will in the future be mainly printed directly onto products and packaging. That label market will also start to disappear.
"Fortunately, many other totally new markets for labels will be emerging in the next ten years," said Harrop. "Take the self-adjusting use by and sell by date or other indication of expiry. Today these are tiny non-electronic labels that rely on chemicals changing colour to show expiry - they do not show a date at all.
"These Time Temperature Indicators (TTIs) can be inaccurate and subject to batch to batch variation and stray parameters such as light and humidity, though they are low cost at a few cents each and one billion a year will be sold soon. They do not show a large unambiguous warning - usually just a colour change in a small dot."
Harrop points out that the electronic successor is not yet available, and predicts that in its initial form it will be a label that will sense the temperature-time profile of the product and reveal a large word "EXPIRED" when appropriate. Later versions will give a date that scrolls down if you leave the milk, say, in the sun.
"The printed display may be used for other purposes such as giving clear instructions in large, even glowing, fonts. However, although companies such as KSW Microtec and Infratab are going up market with such labels by giving them large displays, the massive opportunity is for self adjusting use by dates that cost only tens of cents in billions and a few cents at larger volumes.
"Someone will crack this and create a massive new label market."
Eventually though the self-adjusting use by date will be printed directly on the product or package and a label will not be needed, just as with barcodes and, in the future, RFID labels. The good news however is that there is always another label market coming along.
"For example, Arla Foods, Europe's leading dairy company, has a milk carton in its laboratory that speaks the words "Put me back in the fridge" if you leave it out in the sun," said Harrop.
There is little prospect of printing loudspeakers directly onto things though - the most likely solution will be the transparent laminates of NXT Sound in the UK that are already giving high quality sound in this year's NEC cellphones in Japan.
"Such laminates will be in the form of labels stuck over printed electronics wherever it appears," said Harrop. "Another label market will be born."
IDTechEx and Labels & Labeling are organising the fourth annual Smart Labels USA conference, covering users' needs & experiences, technologies and industry developments. The conference runs from 27 to 30 June in Baltimore, USA.
