SYSTEM FOR PLACING BAR-CODED LABELS ON ELECTRONIC PRICE LABEL: SCANNER READS BAR-CODE AND PRICE LABEL SERIAL NUMBER AND STORES DATA IN COMPUTER

摘要

A system (18) and method are provided for automatically labelling an electronic price label (EPL) tag (10). A customer data file (CDF) includes a batch of records including a product description and corresponding record number. Labels (14) are printed sequentially for the records contained in the CDF and are automatically applied to the EPL tags (10) in a continuous process. The record number is printed on the tag in the form of a corresponding bar code (16), and the record number bar code (16) and a serial number bar code (12a) also contained on the tag (10) are automatically read. The CDF is updated for correlating the serial number with a respective record number. Optical scanners (38,40) are provided for uncovering defects in visual displays (10a) of the tags (10), misapplied labels (14), and unreadable bar codes (12a,16) which are then rejected. A makeup batch of records is identified from the CDF to identify record numbers without corresponding serial numbers, with the makeup batch then being used to repeat the printing and applying steps for fully processing the batch. IMAGE