A customised solution designed by UK-based coding and marking specialist Markem-Imaje has resulted in substantial savings for a leading wound care product manufacturer.
Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS), which develops and manufactures advanced wound care dressing technologies at its Cheshire factory, had a problem with poor legibility of batch codes and expiry dates on an application involving gel-filled aluminium tubes.
Any tubes displaying a code that wasn"t easy to read had to be discarded, and this wastage was having a notable financial impact on AMS.
"Because the tubes are used in aseptic environments, after being filled and coded, they have to be sterilised in an autoclave for an hour at 121°C," said Chris Neild from Markem-Imaje. "AMS was originally using an indenting solution to mark the data on to the fold of each tube.
"Although the codes were of a good standard initially, when sterilised the high temperature in the autoclave caused the tubes to expand and the enamel around the codes flaked off, making them difficult to read."
Markem-Imaje recommended that AMS use its 9040 inkjet coder with an ink specially formulated to withstand high temperatures.
The previous coder had been permanently fixed to a rotary filling machine, but AMS wanted its new coder to be free-standing so that it could easily be manoeuvred to and from the filling machine as required.
To solve this, Markem-Imaje fitted two easy-to-manipulate stainless steel brackets just inside the filling machine to support the stainless steel print head when it was required. It also installed a fibre optic sensor to the side of the print head so that the coder would be able to sense the size and position of each tube to ensure total control of the process.
It was also important that the doors around the filling machine could be closed during the filling and coding process for health and safety purposes. To resolve this issue, Markem-Imaje fitted the coding head with a 90° angle joint to the umbilical, allowing the doors to be shut around it.
As well as overcoming the problem of poor coding, the new 9040 inkjet coder has also reduced batch changeover times for AMS. With the old indentation system, operators had to physically change the digits in the head each time. With the new system, the code data required is simply entered into a large screen on top of the coder using a Querty keyboard.
"The overall efficiency of the process has improved substantially," said Xiaodong Wang, technical manager for AMS. "We can easily install the coder into the rotary filling machine whenever we need it, and it continues to provide a high quality code while printing up to 60 tubes per minute."
