Every label applied. Every code read. Every unit accounted for.

A print and apply system prints a label with variable data (barcodes, lot codes, dates, serials and GS1 codes) and applies it to the product, case or pallet automatically, at line speed. The print job is triggered by your WMS or ERP, so the label matches the record without anyone keying it in. We build them with Label-Aire and LabelMill applicators and Zebra, SATO and Epson ColorWorks print engines, using tamp, smart-tamp, blow, flag, corner-wrap and pallet application.

You probably need one when the hand labelling station sets your line speed, when retail or automotive customers charge back for labels in the wrong place, the wrong orientation or unreadable, or when you apply labels in high volume. A line applying a few hundred labels a day rarely justifies one on cost per label alone. A line applying tens of thousands a day, or one facing regular chargebacks, often pays back sooner than expected once the chargebacks are counted. It makes less sense when volume is low or swings widely, when label sizes and placements change constantly, or when your item and order data is not yet clean and system driven. Whatever you install, add a scanner that verifies each label after it is applied, so a misfeed or low ribbon is caught at your dock, not theirs.

Voice picking, also called voice-directed work, gives each picker spoken instructions through a headset. The system turns tasks from your WMS into speech that tells the picker where to go and what to pick. The picker confirms each step by speaking into the headset, and the software sends that reply back to your WMS as data in real time.

It cuts errors in two ways. First, hands stay on product and eyes stay on the shelf, with no paper list or screen to read and mark. Second, each step is checked as it happens: at each location, the picker speaks the check digit posted at that slot, and the system verifies it against the location it sent them to, so a wrong slot is caught at the slot. In one case published by Honeywell, Würth Austria moved from paper pick lists to Honeywell Voice and cut its pick error rate from 3 to 2 per thousand.

We install Honeywell Guided Work Solutions software on Honeywell A700x series devices and headsets, integrated to your WMS or ERP, for picking, putaway, replenishment, receiving, inspection and cycle counting. Honeywell's voice business has been part of Brady since August 2026.

It lets the people you already have do more of the work that needs a person. Two people at a hand labelling bench set the ceiling for everything upstream of them: you can add a shift, but you cannot add throughput. An applicator does not save labour, it removes the ceiling, and the people who were labelling can move to picking, quality checks or exceptions. Voice-directed work does the same on the pick floor, because instructions come through a headset and nobody is holding paper instead of product.

Material handling is one of the jobs where vacancies are rising in Canada. Statistics Canada counted 9,200 vacancies for material handlers in the second quarter of 2026, up 2,100 from a year earlier, while total job vacancies across the economy were little changed.