Production Label Anatomy: Complete Guide for Cabinetry CNC

A production label is a self-adhesive sticker that iFurn.pro automatically generates for every part of an order right after saw cutting, then prints on the shop-floor printer. The part carries this label through its entire production route: cutting → drilling → routing → grooves → edge banding → final trim cut → QC → packing → shipping. At each stage, the operator glances at the label and immediately knows exactly what needs to be done to this specific part.

Here is what matters most: the entire label layout — operation codes, edge markers, data formatting, block composition — is configurable to match your shop's habits. A workshop in Berlin will see FR and DRILL in English, a workshop in Kyiv will see ФРЕЗ and СВРЛ, and if your operators are used to short two-letter codes, you can configure F and D. Set it once in Firm Settings → Label — and from day one the whole shop is working with familiar notation.

What's encoded on the label

A standard 100×60 mm label fits the entire passport of the part:

Header — order and material

Material SKU: The internal panel code from the materials catalog (e.g., 14213). The saw operator or warehouse picker knows exactly which board to pull — no guessing by color or description.
Material name: The full name including color and manufacturer (e.g., "8685-bs-snow-white-kronospan-2783"). It is truncated with an ellipsis if it overflows — the most important parts (SKU and brand) always remain fully visible.
Order number: The system's internal order number (e.g., 378607). It is end-to-end — you can use it to find the order anywhere in the system: in the database, the archive, the equipment logs.
Client initials: A short customer name (optional, enabled in firm settings). Useful when several similar orders from different clients are running at once — the operator can see which order a given part belongs to.

Part passport

Part number within the order and quantity: The format #9 - 1 means "part number 9, single copy." If there are duplicate parts (for example, 4 identical shelves), each one gets its own label with the same number.
External code: An external accounting code (optional, shown in square brackets: [POLM-000387]). Useful for syncing with a customer's warehouse software or for your own bookkeeping.
Part name: A short technological name or slug formula. Some firms use shop-floor jargon (-top, -side-l, -side-r, -bottom, -friz, -post, -shelf, -false); others use numbering from the engineering specification. For parts that require trim-to-size cutting, the name is replaced with a formula such as cut_to|||-882-*-30.
Product name: The name of the assembled product this part belongs to (e.g., shelving-9-10-11-12 — a shelving unit with the numbers of its component parts). If the part ships on its own (to stock or as a standalone order), this field stays empty.

Dimensions and sizing

Finished dimensions: For example, G1251 x 200 x 18 — length × width × thickness in millimeters. The prefix letter (G by default — for "Gabarit" / overall dimension) is configurable: you can swap it for R, S, D, or leave it blank to print only the numbers.
Size with machining allowance: For example, P1251.4 × P200.4 — length and width including a millimeter allowance for machining. This is the size to which the blank is cut BEFORE edge banding. The prefix (P by default) is likewise configurable.
Panel thickness: Always printed as the third number in the dimensions: 18 mm, 22 mm, 10 mm — whatever the material specifies. Lets you tell at a glance which set of router bits or drill heads to prepare.

Edges

Each of the part's four sides (top, bottom, left, right) gets its own text block with the edge letter and thickness in millimeters, separated by an underscore:

B_0.8 — edge type B, 0.8 mm thick
C_2 — edge type C, 2 mm thick
A_22 — edge type A, 22 mm thick (e.g., for countertop working surfaces)
An empty side = no edge banding on this side, the part ships with a bare cut

If one side of the part needs a trim cut, a marker like | 30--» with an arrow is added to that same side text block — trim 30 mm off this side, the arrow shows the direction.

The legend explaining the edge letters (what B means and what material it is) appears as a separate line in the left column of the label: B 76873-white-pre.... A part with mixed edges (for example, oak PVC on the face, white PVC on the back) gets several legend lines.

Part drawing

At the center of the label is a scaled outline of the panel matching the part's proportions. On each banded side, a thin black indicator strip is drawn so the operator can instantly see which sides need work without reading any text. The drawing also shows:

Dimension lines with the actual numbers (length and width in mm)
Outlines of any routed contours present in the part
Drilling points with their positions called out
X/Y coordinate axes in the lower-left corner (for parts with directional grain or texture)
A large part ID in the center (for parts with additional operations) — makes barcode lookup at the CNC machine quicker

Operations summary

On the right side of the label is a stack of short blocks with operation markers. Only the ones that actually apply to this part show up:

FR — routing (profile cutouts, edge profiling, recesses for hardware)
DRILL — drilling (mounting holes for fasteners, hinges, cam locks, dowels, confirmat screws)
PAZ — grooves (rectangular channels for shelf supports, drawer slides, HDF back panels). Additional markers indicate the groove type: O (open, through-cut), C (closed, blind), ! (along the edge), OK (sharp-edged, no rounding)
CUT — final trim to the finished size on the panel saw (the exact millimeters and side are shown in the corresponding side block)
EVA — edge banding adhesive type (EVA hot-melt, applied automatically by the edgebander). Appears whenever the part has at least one edge band

QR code

In the upper-right corner is a QR code, roughly 225×225 px. It carries a unique link to the part's record in the browser. What this gives you:

The shop foreman scans it with a smartphone — the full specification opens up: dimensions, material, operations, project photos, movement history. No need to walk over to a computer and search for the order.
The furniture assembler at the customer's site scans the same label (labels stay on the finished furniture) — and sees how to assemble it, which fasteners to use, in what order.
Quality control records the completion of each operation right from a smartphone — the part's status updates in the system instantly.
High error correction (HIGH level): the QR scans cleanly even when fouled with sawdust, lightly scratched, or partially damaged.

Date and firm

In the lower-left corner are the firm's domain (e.g., your-firm.com) and the full date and time the order was created (2026-01-22 17:20:56). Helpful in disputes: you can always see which manufacturer produced it and exactly when the order was placed.

Customizing it to your firm

This is what really sets the system apart. Every factory has its own technical vocabulary, its own operator habits, its own conventions that have built up over years. iFurn.pro does not force you to retrain your staff on the system's defaults — instead, the system adapts to your shop floor.

What you can configure

In Firm Settings → Label, you can change:

Operation letters: Every code in the right column (FR, DRILL, CUT, PAZ) is a template 2–5 characters long. Want ROUT instead of FR? Type "ROUT" into the routing field. Want "SAW" instead of "CUT"? Type "SAW." Template length is capped (2 characters for routing, 3 for grooves, 4 for cutting, 5 for drilling) — deliberately, so that the large bold typeface always fits inside the small gray block on the label.
Groove type markers: The letters O / C / ! / OK (open / closed / edge / sharp) can be renamed to any other single-character label. For example, for an English-speaking shop — O / C / E / S (Open / Closed / Edge / Sharp).
Dimension and size prefixes: The G prefix in "G1251 x 200 x 18" is a single configurable letter (lbl.gabarit_name_letter). You can change it to R (Real), D (Dimension), S (Size) — or leave it blank so only the numbers print. The same applies to the P prefix for the size with machining allowance (lbl.part_name_letter).
Edge letters: In the edge banding catalog, each edge is manually assigned a unique letter (A, B, C, D…). That same letter is what prints on the label. If your range covers 30 different edge bands, each one gets its own short tag — and your edgebander operator will have them memorized within a week.
Whether to show the customer name: The "show customer name in the header" option. Useful when several similar orders are running side by side — turn it off with one click if you do not need it.
Part name length: How many characters of the part name to display (18 by default). If your technical names run long ("side-back-left-with-hinge-routing"), raise the limit. If your slugs are short, lower it to free up room for other data.
Firm website at the bottom: The domain printed in the bottom corner. By default, it is pulled from the firm settings, but you can override it — for instance, to print a dealer-partner's domain for white-label branding.
Font scale: An overall multiplier for the size of all text on the label — handy for tuning it to a specific printer and label format without touching every setting one by one.
Font sizes by block: The font size for the part name, for the dimensions (rough size/finished size), and for the material name can be set separately — for example, you can enlarge the sizes the operator reads on the fly and keep the long material name compact.
Dimension arrow thickness: The line thickness of the arrows on the part drawing — thinner for dense printing with small parts, thicker if the shop printer prints unclearly.
Backdrop transparency: The transparency of the part image behind which the dimension lines and edge markers are drawn — can be made paler so it doesn't compete with the text and barcode.

Adaptation examples

Workshop in Poland, operators speak only Polish: change FR → FREZ, DRILL → WIERT, CUT → PILA, PAZ → ROW, EVA → KLEJ. Dimension prefix G → W (Wymiary). Groove markers O → O, C → Z, ! → K (Krawędź), OK → OK. From day one the shop works in its native language.

Workshop in Germany, DIN-standard conventions: FR → FR (keep it), DRILL → BOHR, CUT → SCHN, PAZ → NUT, EVA → LEIM. Prefixes G → M (Maße), P → R (Rohmaß — blank-stock size).

A shop that uses Cyrillic operation codes: FR → ФРЕЗ, DRILL → СВРЛ, CUT → ОТРЕЗ, PAZ → ПАЗ, EVA → КЛЕЙ. Prefixes G → Г, P → П.

A small owner-operator shop: strip out all the letters and keep only the numbers — the owner already knows that 18 means panel thickness and 0.8 means edge thickness.

All of these changes are made once in the admin panel and persist for every future order. Existing orders are untouched — their printouts retain whatever notation was current when they were generated.

How this pays off on the shop floor

Faster route times: Operators do not need to flip through specs or call the manager — everything about the part is right there on the label. Average per-part handling time drops 15–25% compared with setups where the route sheet is printed on separate paper.
Fewer mistakes: The most common production errors are mixing up look-alike parts (left and right side panels) and applying the wrong edge band. The label is stuck directly to the part right after cutting and rides along with it to the end — physically impossible to swap.
QR for self-verification: If the operator is unsure what to do next, a smartphone scan opens the full record with photos. No need to flag down the foreman or stop the machine.
Assembly at the customer's site: The same label stays on the part through delivery. The assembler on site uses the label to identify the part, see how it mates with its neighbors, and know which fasteners go where. It dramatically cuts the volume of "I don't know where this goes" support calls.
Quality control: QC scans the QR — the part is automatically flagged as "inspected." No paper log to keep. The inspection and operation history for every part is stored in the system indefinitely.
Claims and root-cause analysis: If a part comes back defective, a QR scan instantly opens its full history: which material batch, which machine, which shift, which operator. Defect investigation goes from a detective hunt to a simple record lookup.

Vector printing — the technical edge

iFurn.pro generates each label in three formats simultaneously: SVG (for browser viewing and archiving), PNG (for quick preview in the admin panel), and EMF — Windows Enhanced Metafile.

EMF is what actually gets sent to the shop-floor printer. EMF is a vector format. That means the printer receives a mathematical description of lines, curves, and text — not a pixel image. The printer rasterizes it at its own resolution, and the print comes out at typographic quality regardless of label size or printer DPI.

Most label solutions on the market send a plain raster image (PNG or JPEG) to the printer. With nonstandard label sizes or high-DPI printers, those images get muddy: text turns soft, fine lines disappear, and the QR code may stop scanning. The same data printed as EMF always comes out crisp, legible, and typographically clean.

Concrete scenarios where this matters:

High-resolution thermal transfer printers (300/600 dpi) — a vector source delivers everything the printer can resolve, where a raster source just looks blurry.
Small labels (50×30 mm for hardware or small fittings) — raster becomes unreadable, vector scales down without loss.
Large labels (150×100 mm for panel ends or packing crates) — raster pixelates as it scales up, vector stays pristine.
The QR code is the most demanding zone — even slight blur can make it unreadable. Vector printing guarantees crisp edges on every module.

Edge cases and additional elements

Two-sided machining (face / back): For parts with different operations on the face and the back (for example, a door with routing on the face and drilling on the back), the label shows an indicator: two squares next to the drawing. Gray = side is machined, white = side is not. The label filename for such a part gets the suffix f (face) or b<ID> (back) — so when you sort labels, you can immediately tell which side each one belongs to.
Additional services: If a part has paid add-on services (address-specific packing, laser engraving, painting, extra inspection), a red "!services!" marker appears in the upper-right corner of the label. The foreman sees it and knows: this part cannot just go to the finished-goods pile — it needs separate handling or routing to a specialized station.
Mandatory scan: For parts that require an intermediate inspection (for example, after routing a complex profile), a large !!SCAN_QR!! marker appears in black on white. It is a visual reminder to the operator: do not forget to scan before handing this off.
Composite materials: A part built from two different panels (e.g., MFC outside + MDF insert) automatically gets a dual-sided material indicator. Each side is tagged with its own material and its own SKU.
Small parts: If a part is smaller than two-thirds of the drawing area, the text blocks on the sides shift in toward the part's outline — so the numbers stay anchored to their respective sides and the operator can clearly tell which block belongs to which side.
Parts without edge banding: All four side blocks are empty, and no black indicator strips are drawn around the outline. The part goes to assembly or stock as-is, with no edging.
Long customer names: Truncated to 10 characters with an ellipsis. If you need a cleaner result, turn off the customer name display in firm settings, or shorten it in the customer record (instead of "Mebelny Kombinat Limited Liability Company…" — simply "MK-South").

How the labels get to the printer

Once an order goes into production, iFurn.pro automatically generates the full batch of labels (one per physical part, duplicates included) and sends them to the shop-floor printer. The supported paths are:

Direct printing from the manager's PC to a networked shop-floor printer
FTP upload to a print server that then dispatches to printers across multiple stations
ZIP archive download with all the labels for one order — for printing at an offline station
Printing from an integrated panel saw — labels emerge directly from a printer built into the saw, in the order parts are cut

Which path works best depends on your equipment lineup and your shop's existing logistics. All of these modes are configured in Firm Settings → Production → Labels.

What else you should know

iFurn.pro labels are not just stickers — they are the primary interface between the operator and the order on the shop floor. Everything an operator needs at any given machine fits into one small 100×60 mm rectangle: nothing extraneous, nothing missing, legible even in poor lighting and through work gloves.

If your shop currently runs on handwritten tags, printed spec "bedsheets," or a workflow where the operator has to keep walking back to the computer, switching to iFurn.pro labels will deliver a noticeable speed-up in order throughput and a clear reduction in rework caused by mix-ups.

If you already have a label system from another vendor, we will help configure the layout to match what your shop is used to, so your operators do not have to relearn anything. Just send a sample of your current label to technical support, and within a day or two we will tune the parameters so that the new iFurn.pro labels print in the format your operators already know.