Here's how taking the 5 C's challenge could benefit your business.
Case Study 1:
A major cosmetic group was having problems with the printing of the bar code labels that they apply to their traded units. As part of their quality control procedure samples had to be taken from the line every hour and the bar code verified to confirm that it met ANSI standards. They were finding that the quality of the bar code was inconsistent and the code was not always meeting the standard – a problem of Compliance (our 5th “C”).
By working with them, Rotech was able to identify a grade of thermal transfer ribbon that gave perfect, consistent, results and produced a bar code that was always compliant. As well as offering the new ribbon for a lower price, it also ran at a much-reduced energy, so dramatically increasing the printhead life and offering a major Cost of Ownership (our 2nd “C”) benefit into the deal.
Case Study 2:
A contract packer was applying labels to packs with details of the batch code of the product they were packing. They wanted to make a more discreet mark directly onto the pack, so saving the cost of the label and enhancing the look of the pack.
Rotech were able to offer both Thermal Inkjet (the Apsolute V1) and Hot Foil technologies for producing a high quality mark, but the relatively low cost of an offline hot foil coding system (Rotech’s Semi 60) won the day. It also had the advantage of allowing the blister cards employed to be printed in advance of being packed and so requiring one operator to supply the entire needs of the packing floor.
Two C’s fulfilled – a increase in code quality while delivering lowest possible cost of ownership.
Case Study 3:
A manufacturer of medical consumables needed to print a lot number on the cartons into which 50 individual wipes were packaged. They knew how much mess a continuous ink jet printer could make and were determined not to introduce this technology into their clean room. As the number of cartons used per minute was comparatively low, it was possible to supply several production lines with one offline overprinting system.
The Rotech Feeder 150 offered a clean, crisp code and the convenience of having one machine to cover the output from several lines. The cost of ownership for this one system was also far less than equipping each line with an inkjet printer.
Another two C’s fulfilled, cleanliness and cost of ownership
Case Study 4:
A pharmaceutical company approached Rotech with something of a conundrum as they needed to print every pocket of a blister pack to permit individual tablets to be issued to the patient. Although they had a thermal transfer printer capable of printing every pocket, the print did not survive the heat of the seal and became hard to read. Furthermore, there was a requirement to introduce DataMatrix barcoding – without a doubt a bridge too far given the heating issues.
Rotech were able to supply an Apsolute V1 thermal inkjet system as it gave the clarity of print required and so allowed the customer to produce packs that were fully compliant with regulatory requirements.
A solution that ticked all the C’s
Case Study 5:
Rejecting a completed pack because of non-compliant code data, is frustrating and expensive activity. The product has to be re-worked and the packaging discarded.
One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical groups were having problems with high reject levels of their hot foil coded Lot and Expiry dates. In theory, the technology was ideal, but the vision system was having trouble distinguishing the characters in the code.
Rotech were able to deliver a high clarity, compliant coding system, simply ensuring that that hot foil coders were correctly set-up and also by providing type digits engraved in an OCR-B font – specifically intended to be read by a camera system with no possibility for mis-reads.
A simple solution, but one that delivered on two of the five C’s – clarity giving compliance.
Case Study 6:
If your business is supplying seeds via mail order, you are going to have to cope with a vast range of products and, potentially a vast range of packaging. However, seeds have the advantage of being small and, for the most part, able to share a common package. All that needed is a means to customise the pack with the details of the seed – including the important, and often detailed, information on how to cultivate it!
The Rotech Feeder 250 was designed for just such an application to offer a convenient, high clarity, print that could be made on demand as orders were received into the business.
Two more of Rotech 5C’s taken care of with one machine.
