Claricom, leading manufacturer of Package Coding Management (PCM) Systems, is advising food manufacturers that rely on manual data entry to double check their use-by dates in March this year.

“The fact that 2008 is a leap year means that this February is even more prone to errors than normal,” said Mike Smith, UK PCM sales manager of Claricom. “When operators use the same process day-in, day-out, it brings familiarity but also routine. It is often the exceptions that cause problems.”

Typically, use-by dates are governed by a manufacturer’s rules regarding the life of the product: a ready meal, for example, may be expected to last seven days from the cook date. Ordinarily, a batch that is prepared on February 25 will have a use by date of March 4, but in a leap year, this changes to March 3. If this essential point is forgotten, an operator manually keying in the coding data will provide consumers with incorrect information.

“Because of the complexities of product coding, manufacturers often survive on a mix of know-how, intuition and a variety of verbal or written instructions,” continued Smith. “If the operator is required to ‘work out’ the life based on, say, the cook date, or to make sure they have the right number of days in the month, human error is almost inevitable.”

An error of this type will have serious repercussions, both practically and legally. It is to remove the risk of this type of avoidable error that Claricom advises the use of PCM. PCM is designed to take data entry out of the hands of operators, through central management of all information. Only when data has been checked and signed-off will it go to the production line, and through the use of networking coding and labelling equipment can be automatically set-up to bypass operator entry entirely.

Claricom has also developed a product specifically to address the date rule issues that affect leap years and other exceptions to the norm such as promotions. CLARiFY package coding planning software provides an intuitive tool for setting coding rules, including nominal date offsets and allowable date code ranges for each product. Additional date rules can be set, such as Christmas avoidance dates and day-of-week rules to further eliminate human error.

“The use of PCM, with centralised control, pre-agreed coding rules and automatic set-up of coding equipment, is proven to reduce coding errors and to minimise risk,” said Smith. “Without it, food manufacturers may spend an anxious leap year wondering if their operators have remembered to add a day.”