Automobile label engineering at CCL

The company has acquired a patent on its printing process of sun visor labels. Jochen Schleiss, general manager at CCL Design (Changzhou) said: ‘Though only four colors (white, yellow, red and black) are visible to the eye, it requires nine printing stations and three laminating units to produce this label. The material on which it is printed was developed for two years, especially for CCL, by our suppliers.’

The company manufactures sun visor labels under IATF 16949 (TS16949) standards, as required by the automotive industry, at one factory in China and uses its locations worldwide for distribution. ‘Global OEMs use the same label material everywhere in the world. Though CCL has many plants worldwide, it is not always possible to source raw material in each country,’ he said.

Schleiss estimated the Chinese market of automotive labels that go in a new car straight out of the factory at more than 500 million USD per annum. ‘China sold 28 million cars last year and each car has 1200 to 1500 labels. It is, therefore, the biggest market in the world for these labels,’ he added.

Printing automobile labels requires stringent processes that need approval from automobile companies. Schleiss said that redesigning a label for a car requires approval from all OEMs that are manufacturing that part of a car. ‘OEMs test many properties of new label material to ensure its safety. Once approved, the changes are incorporated in their drawing so that every factory that is manufacturing the part uses the same label with the same material. It is a long process.’

‘Adhesive is the key,’ Schleiss said explaining the importance of functionality in automobile labels. ‘We sometimes provide adhesives that range from -70 to 150 degree celcius. A label has to stick on, for example a car engine where it is very hot, dirty and acidic, for the life time of the engine. It takes up to two to three years to make an automobile label because of high requirements and lots of tests that a label goes through.’

Citing an example, Schleiss said that in one of the tests air bag is cooled down to -60 degree celcius in a cooling chamber and then released. ‘If the label material used is not correct, the label gets off the air bag when it is released. At low temperature, the adhesive can freeze making the label sharp like a razor. Using right material is very critical so it deeply merges with the fabric of the air bag and the adhesive connects with the material.’

Despite tests and compliances, the labels are often counterfeited. To combat the menace, CCL on customer request, uses temperature sensitive inks so when counterfeit companies use hair dryer to peel off the label by melting the adhesive, the ink changes to print ‘Fake’ on the label. It stays on the label permanently making it useless.

The company also developed a label for wipers which is a small black dot that is stuck on wipers when a car is bought. This black dot changes to yellow due to exposure to ultra violet light when the car is parked under the sun. Wiper degrades in quality if exposed to sun for a long time. So, this label is an indicator of changing car wipers.

‘We develop some very complicated labels for automobile industry and the processes are so confidential that we close our printing areas and do not allow access to anyone on the machines when production are running,’ Schleiss said.

With the acquisition of Checkpoint in Chennai and Super Labels in Mumbai, CCL is planning several activities with automotive industry in India while trying to get automobile label printing business to the country. ‘A lot of OEMs are manufacturing in India or are entering this market. Most Indians start with a small car and then buy big cars as they progress. Then there is a market of two wheelers and three wheelers as well. 50 million scooters are sold every month in this country. India, in the next five years, will be where China is today,’ he concluded.