How To Print DLA Unit Container Labels (MIL-STD-129) In Loocey – The Easy Way

Overview

Printing your Unit Container labels is challenging as DLA nor VSM provide a way labels compatible with label printers such as the Zebra printers. (note: show a picture of Zebra ZD-621 printer)

In this tutorial, we’ll learn how Loocey’s label maker makes this process significantly easier.

Loocey’s Label Maker is not only designed to be compatible with Label Printers, but also, it automatically fills in many of the details from the contract, saving time with data entry and validates the required fields, avoiding costly errors.

Step by step

The walkthrough covered in the video, written out so you can follow along inside Loocey.

1. Printing your Unit Container labels can be challenging, since DLA and VSM do not provide labels that are compatible with label printers such as Zebra printers.
2. Loocey’s Label Maker is designed to work with label printers and automatically fills in many required details from your RFQ and award data. This saves time on manual data entry and helps validate required fields to avoid costly errors.
3. Go to the Bidding Board and click on the Won tab.
4. This is a view we created specifically for listing awarded items.
5. Next, make sure the Award / Contract ID column is visible and move it to the left so it’s easy to see in the Won view.
6. You can do this either by dragging the column or by opening the column settings, selecting Move To, and placing it next to the NSN column.
7. Always remember to Save the view so your column changes and order are preserved.
8. For this example, we’ll enter an Award ID on one of the rows.
9. Now select the row, click the three-dot menu, and choose Label Maker.
10. This opens Loocey’s Label Maker.
11. You’ll notice that many fields are already filled in automatically, including the Award ID, NSN, Unit of Issue, Quantity, and Description.
12. At the top, we have the label size settings.
13. On the Settings tab, you’ll see label related settings, such as the size, Barcode Format and other settings.
14. By default, the label size is set to 3 inches by 2 inches, but you can easily increase or decrease the width, height, or font size to fit your label stock and printer.
15. Now let’s go back to the General tab and go over the fields:
16. Award / Contract ID – this is the awarded contract id, we’ll enter an example contract ID. (SPE4A625T47CC)
17. However, if you close the label maker, and go and enter the Award ID in the table and reopen the Label Maker, this field will be auto populated.
18. NSN – the national stock number
19. Label Type – you can choose from Unit Container, Intermediate Container and External container.
20. For Unit Container, the quantity field should be the QUP or number of units required per unit, based on the contract
21. For Intermediate Container, the quantity field should be matching with the number of units packaged in the Intermediate Container
22. and same goes for Exterior Container type, the quantity entered should be the total number of units in the exterior container.
23. Then we have Your Cage field, which should be the cage of the company that was awarded the contract, followed by the Description field, which is the same as nomenclature
24. Next we have, Preservation Method, which should be specified in the contract
25. Followed by the Preservation date month and year selector and Part Number, Unit Of Issue and Shelf Life if any.
26. You can also use Additional Info Line to add any other details that are required per your contract.
27. When Exterior Container type is selected, you will also see the Weight and Cubic square feet fields, Weight is required, Cube is optional, but again, check your contract details.
28. highlights with red each field that you talk about above. Choose an actual example to fill out the details, when there is a mouse over tooltip, be sure to point the mouse to it to show the tooltip as you talk about it, important to show Each Label Type and tooltip changes as it mentioned above.

Where this fits

This tutorial covers the Labels, Packaging & Post-Award part of Loocey DLA. MIL-STD-129R container labels, the Label Maker API and DLA packaging requirements.

• Loocey DLA Getting Started guide — account setup and the full bidding workflow
• Saved-search recipes — the exact column, condition and value for 20 common DLA searches
• DLA / DIBBS glossary — what every field on a solicitation means
• All Loocey DLA video tutorials