Advanced laser coding technology brings new inspiration to food packaging

Lipton is part of Unilever Foods, a company's factory that recently installed the Markem SmartLase laser coding system on 13 tea load lines. Lipton previously used waxing equipment to mark and code the carton. Because the code used to process the waxing equipment was not enough, the company felt it was necessary to replace the existing equipment. Wax-based coding may be physically damaged and may be wiped off the package. Jonathan Jett-Palmer, Lipton's manufacturing manager, wanted to find a solution that could print time, date, and month of manufacture on the carton. However, he is reluctant to purchase such a device because of the potential toxicity of a solution-based marking system.

After investigating the market, Jett-Palmer installed a MARKEM SmartLase laser coding system. He conducted a one-year observation and evaluation of this system. The system performed well so he installed 12 SmartLase systems on the other 12 packaging lines in the factory and equipped the whole plant with a laser system. The laser encoder accelerated the production speed of Lipton's packaging line, greatly improved the printing quality, did not use toxic ink, and did not require consumables.

Jett-Palmer said "We want to solve the coding problem that causes customer dissatisfaction and achieve standardization of all carton code appearances to achieve high recognition. The main requirement is accuracy. All date codes on the carton are in the same place. We hope that the error does not exceed 1.6 mm."

SmartLase laser encoders are low-power carbon dioxide digital systems that can process high-quality, permanent codes quickly. These encoders are compact and provide clear and clear marks and codes. The low operating cost, high reliability, and compact design are the main goals. There are some other advantages:

â—† The laser encoder can be easily installed on most production lines. Because the size of the machine is small, the print heads have multiple positions, so the machine is easy to install and protect;
â—† With SmartLase QWERTY's standard English user interface, it can print at the required time and location;
â—† If the installation is properly guarded, the air-cooled CO2 laser is one of the safest coding systems;
â—† System procurement costs are low, integration requirements are simple, so it is easy to accept from the perspective of capital budget;
â—† The use of SmartLase encoders does not require the installation of a PC at the factory, through Markem's CimControl networking software that can be fully integrated into the manufacturing process.

Jett-Palmer said, “We have done many comparisons. This device is small enough to fit into our packaging line and is easy to install. We value reliability so that the first device is run for a year first and there is no problem. The new device Advanced Intuition We only need to set the internal clock to set the time and date once. Markem helps us to complete the first installation. The rest of the installation is done by us.”