PrintingNews.com

There's no doubt about the growing impact and utility that holograms have on the battle against counterfeiting, which costs the industry billions each year in lost revenue and untold damage to brand reputations. But in recent times, we're starting to see the role that the latest authentication technology plays in improving supply chain management.

The versatility, the role of track-and-trace hologram technology, and the way some organizations have embraced it is an interesting evolution. The counterfeiting explosion is being driven by increased industrial globalization, extended supply chains, the growth of brands, weak regional law enforcement, and lenient criminal penalties. Moreover, the impact of the Internet as a conduit for counterfeit goods and the impact of high-quality reprographic technology have also made it easy and affordable to copy brand packaging.

So, it's little wonder that the hologram has emerged to become the primary choice for an expanding range of anti-counterfeiting and brand protection applications. The technology's ability to incorporate other data forms and product tracking information is becoming increasingly important, and commercially acceptable, with the added bonus of being able to link on-pack product identification with supply chain management, market enforcement, and forensic support services.

New imaging techniques and combinations of other overt authentication technologies with holograms are producing a new generation of optical security devices, which combine ease of recognition benefits with significantly enhanced resistance to counterfeits. This enables the identity and distribution of goods to be controlled through an expanded system solution involving security authentication features, tracking mechanisms, and investigative services. The rise of the Internet and globalization is blurring the edges of markets that were once geographically based, often impinging upon an organization's ability to maintain brand image by selling only in premium channels. The result is a burgeoning grey market economy (where legitimate goods are produced in unauthorized quantities, or diverted to a market in which a retailer has no right to sell them).

Tackling the issue typically requires marking individual items with unique serial numbers or 'license plates,' which can then be tracked through the whole supply chain process, from the production line to final point-of-sale. Armed with the information this provides, companies and the anti-counterfeiting agencies that work on their behalf can examine products found in flea markets on the other side of the world, on the premises of an unauthorized retailer or dealer, or on a 'fly-by-night' Web site.

Advanced Applications

Today's updated holograms offer track and trace features, which can help users generate unique, sequential, encrypted, or random serial numbers, or identify and mark products via special self-adhesive labels or directly onto products using a variety of print technologies. The identity of individual items can be linked to packaging through a specific code, which in turn can be linked to case ID, pallet ID, or container ID. The recording of this so-called parent-child relationship among unit pack, carton, and pallet is the beginning of an electronic pedigree, which allows the item to be tracked throughout the many layers of the distribution chain, from the factory and packaging, through distribution to the final user.

Of particular value to the brand owner, (and a strong financial incentive to make the investment in such systems), is the fact that the information generated at this labeling stage can be linked to the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which links in a single database for a variety of business functions such as manufacturing, supply chain management, finance, projects, human resources, and customer relationship management.

The move toward outsourcing the production of goods might be beneficial in terms of reducing manufacturing costs, but it can affect the control of brand security and visibility. Holograms can be integrated into the supply chain security process to enable companies to maintain control of their products from the sourcing of labels or proprietary components, to the manufacturing and shipment of finished goods. Holograms can also be included with secure Web interfaces to help eliminate rogue ordering of products, while authorized distributors can pick, pack, and ship items in carefully measured quantities to customers, with the products' movements throughout the supply chain tracked and documented.