FEAT RE FEA ATURE
BARCOD NGRCODIING, LABELLING
NG & PACK
CKAGING
NG
CODING: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Rotech Machines, specialist in coding fe
Rot ch Machines specialist in coding io
mi
rk this mp
ng
inteintegration and feeding systems, celebrates its th an versary this . T
in
systems, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Tomark this milestone, company
director, Richard Pether, lo
director, Richard Pether, looks back through the decades of codi g
s b ck thro decades of codin
technologies and w at i in
THE NEXT HE NEXT 20 YEARS
tore for the future EARS
technologies and what i s in-store for the future
Maximising productivity will continue to be a primary target for FMCG manufacturers. From a coding
perspective, this will mean more focus on total cost of ownership and overall equipment effectiveness models.
T
he birth of the continuous inkj printing stretches back to the late
kjet
1970s and early 1980s, when companies like Domino, Videoj
on the industrial implementation of continuous inkj
kjet (CIJ) technology. In
their R&D, the engineers of these early printers were striving to develop systems with totally sealed printheads, single button start and stop and the ability to print up to several lines of text - principles that still hold true today. Around 1980 analogue hot foil coding was firmly established as the technology of choice for applying expiry dates to packs; it remained popular into the 1990s, until it started to be overtaken by digital coding technologies. Interpack 1992 saw the launch of the first TTO (thermal transfer overprinting) system from SmartDate, bringing digital printing technology to flexible film packaging . It became apparent that as coding requirements changed due to supply chain, customer or regulatory demands, analogue technologies - constrained by the number of characters held in the type holder or the amount of text that could be added to the circumference of the die wheel - had limited flexibility. The early 1990s alsomarked the advent of the laser coder for packaging applications. The first systems were based on CO2 lasers followed by fibre l asers whic h excel at coding high-density packaging materials such as metal cans.
, , inkj
A further coding technology - thermal kjet (TIJ) - entered the fray in the ‘noughties’, and has since emerged as a serious rival to CIJ. Thermal systems have been used on office desktop printers for
24 24 OC OCTOBE BER 201 2017 | FAC ACTORY EQ EQUIPMEN PMENT ojet and Linx embarked
years, but the equipment has only recently become robust enough for industrial environments. The main benefits of TIJ stem from the use of ink cartridges - which prevent ink spillages during operation and changeovers but above all else require no maintenance. While TIJ systems were expensive and unable to accommodate the solvent inks needed to print on non-porous surfaces, manufacturers continued to invest in the technology due to the cleanliness and high coding quality advantages of TIJ. Indeed, some pharmaceutical companies changed to packaging substrates that could support water-based inks just so they could run TIJ coders.
DYNAMIC DEVELOPMEN NAMIC DEVELOPMENTS The barriers that prevented wider
adoption of TIJ - chiefly ink performance and equipment cost - have been addressed. R&D based inks, enab porous, coated s
urfaces. Ink performance ling printing on non- has yielded ethanol-
has also been improved, with work to develop yielding inks with high optical darkness and extended de-cap times. The latest generation of coders, whether CIJ, TIJ, TTO or laser, feature intuitive user interfaces that reduce the potential for operator errors. They are designed to be part of a factory network, so, for example, job changes can be executed from a remote location, code data can be updated via a centralised database and printer performance can bemonitored. Today’s coders are also capable of
generating variable and serialised data as well as 2D codes - required for the
pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Tomorrow’s technology will have to be able to demonstrate productivity gains, whether through the best availability rates or optimised maintenance schemes to avoid any impact from printer downtime on the production line.
Industry 4.0 will play a major role here, nt software will
Richard Pether, director of Rotech Machines, says that future coding equipment software will become part of
equipment software will become part of
connected manufacturconnected manufacturinging to impro ve productivitto improve productivity
Richard Pether, director of Rotech Machines, says that future coding
cyber-physical conn harness the opportu evolve to enable ma and coding equipme
nities offered by nufacturers to
ectivity . SEEKING PRO EC IO N SEEKING PROTECTION
The threat posed by counterfeit product copies will drive the wider adoption of serialised and unique codes, whilst pressure to uphold brand image will benefit TIJ and laser. These technologies can offer higher resolution text and images that can enhance the look of a product. Greater importance will also be placed on product recall prevention and planning, and companies will be looking for coding systems t by unskilled operato
rs or that minimise hat are easy to use
operator intervention altogether.
Sustainability will continue to be high on the agenda for FMCG companies under scrutiny from consumer groups and regulators. Equipment will need to be more energy efficient to run, reducing fluid consumption, removing heavy metals and solvents from inks and ensuring codability of biodegradable materials Further r egulation in the are a of traceability is also to be expected, creating a requirement for more
.
sophisticated coding methods such as serialisation down to unit pack level.
Rotech Machines
www.rotechmachines.com / FACTORY
ww.rotechmachines.com FACTORYEQUIPMENT RYEQUIPMENT th
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 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286 |
Page 287 |
Page 288 |
Page 289 |
Page 290 |
Page 291 |
Page 292 |
Page 293 |
Page 294 |
Page 295 |
Page 296 |
Page 297 |
Page 298 |
Page 299 |
Page 300 |
Page 301 |
Page 302 |
Page 303 |
Page 304 |
Page 305 |
Page 306 |
Page 307 |
Page 308 |
Page 309 |
Page 310 |
Page 311 |
Page 312 |
Page 313 |
Page 314 |
Page 315 |
Page 316 |
Page 317 |
Page 318 |
Page 319 |
Page 320 |
Page 321 |
Page 322 |
Page 323 |
Page 324 |
Page 325 |
Page 326 |
Page 327 |
Page 328 |
Page 329 |
Page 330 |
Page 331 |
Page 332 |
Page 333 |
Page 334 |
Page 335 |
Page 336 |
Page 337 |
Page 338 |
Page 339 |
Page 340
