Alpha Dot's expertise is recognised (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Alpha Dot's expertise is recognised

A COMPANY that is an expert in the field of bar coding has gained accreditation from the industry's standard setter.

Alpha Dot, of Lopcombe Corner, was awarded accreditation alliance member status from the e.centre, the independent UK bar coding authority, at a ceremony at the company's premises earlier this month.

It is one of only two companies nationwide to achieve such status.

Its UK sales manager, Ian Watson, said Alpha Dot started as an independent company 16 years ago with five employees and was now part of Domino, a corporation with a turnover of £160m and 1,500 staff.

He explained that manufacturing companies cased or boxed their products and Alpha Dot's role was to print text, graphics and bar codes on those cases and boxes.

"Bar codes and machine readable codes first appeared in the 1980s and are very important to industry," said Mr Watson.

"Traditionally, companies would manufacture hundreds of different types of products and they would have to go out and buy cases to match all those products.

"We can say to them 'buy blank cases and we will put the coding on the side' - that is a significant saving for them, sometimes tenfold.

"We are now supplying these products throughout the world and in two years we have quadrupled our turnover.

"Our expectations are to double that in the next four-to-five years."

The company's flagship product is the Merlin 700 printer, which prints text, graphics and bar codes.

The need for its high quality printing has become even greater - supermarket suppliers need to provide readable bar codes and accurate traceability data on their secondary packaging.

Mr Watson said Alpha Dot, which employs 50 people, applied for accreditation from the e.centre and had worked very closely with it.

It had gone through a rigorous assessment and audit, the process taking about two years.

"The accreditation means we can go to industry in the UK and offer them confidence in us that we can provide an alternative solution to applying bar codes to cases on line and on demand," said Mr Watson.

Gary Lynch, director of the e.centre, who presented Mr Watson with the certificate, said the accreditation process was made more difficult at the request of Alpha Dot.

"Alpha Dot told us it was just not tough enough," he said.

"So with its help we put together a very difficult process.

"The effort Alpha Dot put in was significant and this accreditation will help it differentiate itself from organisations that provide a similar service."

o Next month, Alpha Dot will take part in Total - the biannual exhibition of the processing and packaging industry at the NEC in Birmingham.