May22019

Thermal printing

The role of Thermal Printing in the process of Ballot Casting and Ballot Verification

Articles

According to the site verifiedvoting.org, the November 2018 elections continued to see a mixture of voting technologies across the United States that ranged from mail-in only ballot casting in some States, to highly automated solutions, for instance more than a State, today has DRE and VVPAT in almost all of its voting districts. While States and the Federal Government, and even the courts, set the guidelines and the standards that drive the way in which the voting process guarantees a fair outcome, there are a number of factors that continue to influence how solutions for capturing votes have been developed, are being developed and will change.

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Apr122018

The cost of low quality

Articles

For a company that has the possibility to buy a widget from more than one supplier or manufacturer, it is difficult to evaluate which supplier is providing the best value, based solely on their price. The invisible costs carry the most risk, and overall they have the largest impact on overall cost. So how could price be the deciding factor?

The fact is that risk and soaring costs go hand in hand. And while a company may work hard to improve process, lower risk and improve predictability to drive down internal costs, the causes of low quality may come from sources that are not under company’s control. Or apparently not, anyway. It is in fact quite common that supply side issues are constant disrupters, adding to costs of inspections,

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Dec202017

KFI custom printer versus standard thermal printer

Custom printers vs Standard: The Debate of Complexity, Cost and Quality

Articles

Eric Leclair, co-founder and President of a rubber manufacturer that serves several verticles including the Medical industry, wrote an article a while back called Custom parts vs. standard parts-demystifying the debate.
In this article Eric weighs the pros and cons of using standard parts in new product designs, versus the apparently higher cost and risk of more desirable outcomes that customized components can bring to innovative applications. He states that many firms force “standardization” on their designers and engineers because they believe that this drives down costs, both upfront design product design costs and during the entire life cycle of the product: inventories can be managed better, multiple suppliers can be engaged and technical support and customer service is facilitated.

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