Medical and Healthcare
- Sterile packs
- Medical Devices
- Medical papers
- Datamatrix coding
- Offline overprinting
Background
Medical: A clean and dry environment, with the products usually packed in ‘clean room’ conditions where the air is filtered as products are exposed and might be subsequently sterilised. Often labour-intensive operations packing medical devices that can be quite large.
Healthcare: Environment might be less stringent if the products are not intended to be ‘ingested’ (e.g., a wound dressing or a mouth wash).
Key drivers
- Code integrity is paramount. Systems must deliver the highest standard of marking, constantly. Code must remain intact for the lifetime of the product, often several years, making consumables a key factor in the system.
- Reliability of consumable supply very important. Validation process means that products must be consistent, and implementing change is a lengthy process.
- Applications knowledge and the ability to respond to new demands of the business, such as 2D bar coding, is important.
Typical applications
- Printing of a complete product description along with batch code and expiry date on a medical device packet: Thermal Transfer; Thermal Inkjet
- Lot code and expiry date on a wound dressing packed into a sachet: Hot Foil; Thermal Transfer
- Marking of product dimension on plastic component: Hot Foil; Thermal Ink Jet
- Lot code and expiry date in the crimp of a plastic or metal tube: Embossing; Thermal Inkjet
