INSIGHT
Combatting counterfeit lubricants
Counterfeits are an ever-increasing problem affecting all consumer and industrial sectors.
The 2019 OECD report “Trends in Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods” estimates that in 2016 6.8% of EU imports from third countries are counterfeit, representing a financial loss of €121 billion – up from 5% in 2013.
A report in 2021 commissioned by the Asian Lubricants Industry Association estimates that 10% of all lubricants in the world are counterfeit and highlights low customer awareness as a key enabling factor for the increase in counterfeiting.
Over the last few decades there have been significant beneficial developments in materials, manufacturing processes and technologies, but the techniques used to combat counterfeits hadn’t evolved to the same extent until quite recently.
The historical methods like holograms and tamper proof stickers used to work quite well until the advancing developments in packaging and labelling made it relatively easy and quick for counterfeiters to copy or imitate them.
As a countermeasure to this, product manufacturers are having to reinvent and redesign packaging and labelling, and reinform consumers with the aim of staying at a point where the consumer has enough evidence to identify if a product is genuine. All these good efforts are not reversing the trend – the weakest link being the capacity of the consumer to keep up with what to check for.
A new QR-code based anti-counterfeit solution that addresses this issue of requiring the consumer to make increasing efforts to remain on track is now available – contributing to returning to the situation where there is an easy and fast way for a consumer to verify if the product they’ve got is genuine.
The solution is a client-server system meaning that 32 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.166 DECEMBER 2021
Additionally, manufacturers can use the system to provide consumers with a comfortable way of accessing product/batch specific safe handling and disposal information, as well as to establish more targeted marketing.
Environmental problems are an ongoing issue for all of us and responsible manufacturers are spending significant effort, time and money towards solving them. It is quite unfair and sad that equipment is still getting damaged by counterfeit lubricants, often irreparably, and has to be thrown away. This is causing significant damage to nature including affecting the life conditions of irreplaceable habitats. Ironically these exact cases are creating big damage to the reputation of genuine manufacturers whilst the reduction in the overall market share of genuine quality products is dramatic to the environment.
Manufacturers are investing in innovations, in new products and processes, safeguarding good jobs whilst at the same time having to divert valuable resources to keeping ahead of counterfeiters. Current available anti-counterfeit technologies didn’t reinvent the wheel in how the core anti-counterfeit processes flow. They just gave back to consumers an easy and reliable way of determining if a product is genuine, and allowed manufacturers to gather data to combat counterfeits more effectively so that the rule of the law is protecting us all.
Trevor Claybrough, Sales Director, QR Security Alliance, Ltd.
when a consumer scans a QR-code the server replies with the verification result. Each QR-code is specific for an individual product item and has a unique ID incorporated in it. When a product turns out to be counterfeit the consumer has the option to submit details about it to the brand owner. The check is fast, doesn’t require the user to install any App and can be done anonymously.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
