With supply changeovers that can be completed in under 20 seconds, Brady Worldwide's BBP33 label printer is ideal for companies that have multiple internal users or locations that need to print, explains Matt Luger, the company's senior product marketing manager for printers. "We target anyone who is struggling with their current printers," Luger says.

The introduction of Brady Worldwide's BBP33 printer should be welcome news to companies that need to perform frequent supply changeovers, says Matt Luger, senior product marketing manager for printers.

In fact, Luger asserts in an interview with New Equipment Digest, the label printer should be welcome news to "anyone who is struggling with their current printers."

NED: What motivated Brady to develop this printer?

ML: We received feedback from the marketplace that users of other printers do not like spending time on slow and tedious supply changeovers and wasting labels with their current printer.

Further, they often have multiple internal users or locations that need to print, making it difficult to train others due to the tedious setup and chance of error.

Overall, customers want time savings and no more wasted labels—all in an effort to reduce cost, which led us to develop the BBP33 printer.

NED: How is this product different from similar printers on the market today?

ML: There are three remarkable and new-to-the-market differences between our BBP33 and other printers available today.

First, it takes users less than 20 seconds to do a complete supply changeover in the BBP33 printer—both ribbon and label roll.

This is unique since other printers on the market require users to thread labels and ribbons around printheads and onto the take-up spools. This is very time-consuming, wastes ribbon, makes it difficult to train others, and is often done incorrectly, which results in more wasted supplies and possible damage to the printhead.

With the BBP33 printer, all the supplies drop or snap into place, allowing anyone to do it after seeing it done just once. This reduces training time and cost and results in less downtime from setup errors.

The second and third advantages of the BBP33 printer are no calibration and no wasted labels.

In the past, users needed to adjust sensors and then “calibrate” their printers by feeding out blank labels before being able to print. This takes time and can be confusing. Often the sensors are not adjusted correctly and then another calibration is necessary wasting more labels.

The BBP33 printer does not require calibration or sensor adjustments prior to printing, which means no wasted labels. With the BBP33 printer, users just have to close the lid and print!

NED: What problems needed to be addressed during the development process?

ML: Brady designed and built this printer in-house so the most challenging part of the development was to enable a wide and diverse range of supplies to work through the printer. We worked to make sure we have options for both ends of the spectrum. This printer works with a variety of label types, including ultra-thin labels designed for our laboratory users on tubes to heat-shrink wire sleeves to ultra-thick raised profile labels that serve as an alternative to engraved plates and push-buttons.

NED: How long did it take from conception to final production?

ML: The BBP33 printer took several years to develop internally. This includes market research, development, internal testing, prototyping and customer-alpha and beta-testing, and production ramp-up.

NED: What effect did cost factors have in changing the final design of the product?

ML: While it’s always a challenge, we were successful in keeping the costs low on the BBP33 without sacrificing our functional product-design requirements or customer value proposition. This also helped us launch the printer with an aggressive price point that met both the project deliverable as well as the target customer price we determined from our research.

NED: Who is your target audience and what benefits will they achieve from using this printer?

ML: The BBP33 printer uniquely targets the mid-volume printer user in several key market sectors. These users have a bigger mix of the label parts they use and therefore need to do more changeovers.

We target anyone who is struggling with their current printers—wasting labels, cumbersome setups, and who needs to train multiple users to use the printer. We also target portable printer users who want to upgrade to a faster printer with larger supply width to complement their mobile printers.

NED: Care to add any other interesting sidelights?

ML: The biggest challenge we have is that users doubt the BBP33 printer actually prints the first label with no calibration. They have to see it to believe it. In order to help customers experience this benefit, we created a video demonstration that lives on our website.

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