Laser Coding and Marking Gives Wine Packer Retail Advantage
Kingsland Wines and Spirits bottle and pack wines for most major UK retailers. Since installing the first innovative laser marking machines in 2004, they have been able to substantially increase line uptime – a crucial factor for high pressure deliveries into retail chains.
[UKPRwire, Fri Oct 12 2007] Kingsland Wines and Spirits bottle and pack wines for most major UK retailers. Since installing the first innovative laser marking machines in 2004, they have been able to substantially increase line uptime – a crucial factor for high pressure deliveries into retail chains. This has as prompted the addition of the new machine from Vespalase, the laser division of coding and marking specialist Euromark.
Kingsland’s engineering manager, Nigel Smith explained, “This is an exceptionally high volume bottling operation and our retail customers require us to mark product with batch codes for traceability. Previously, we were coding and marking the necks of bottles using continuous ink jet (CIJ) printers. The clarity and legibility of these marks was an issue, especially on bottles of red wine. We now laser mark the base of the bottle and find the mark meets our customers need for a discrete, but legible, permanent mark. Customers can find the marks easily and tell us they are useful in managing stock rotation.”
In addition to marking glass, metal, ceramics and other challenging materials, Vespalase lasers can be programmed to mark films, foils and card. Extending laser marking to bag-in-a-box wine containers is under consideration at Kingsland.
The high speed Vespalase lasers can mark at a rate up to 1600 characters per second and the absence of fumes from inks and solvents is also an environmental benefit. The machines offer a range of high resolution alpha numeric fonts in addition to conventional and 2D matrix bar codes. Laser coded marks are permanent and cannot be erased or overwritten without leaving evidence.
Nigel Smith concluded, “With the old CIJ machines, there was a high cost of consumables and maintenance. Downtime for maintenance and breakdown was extremely disruptive and costly. By contrast, the lasers have performed flawlessly, requiring no consumables or even routine attention.”
Vespalase offer nationwide service and are happy to advise food and beverage producers, retailers and packaging suppliers on permanent laser coding and marking of products and packaging materials. The company offers a CO2 (carbon dioxide) laser which has a tube life of 30,000 working hours and a fiber laser which offers an outstanding life of 100,000 hours working life. Full details are available on the Vespalase web site at www.vespalase.com.
More Information
Ian Luck, Tel. +44 (0)1942 228882 Fax. +44 (0)1942 228802
E-mail: info@euromark-coding.co.uk Web: www.euromark-coding.co.uk
Euromark Coding & Marking Ltd, Unit 5 Croftwood Square, Martland Mill Industrial Estate, Wigan, WN5 0LG
High/low resolution images are on the web at www.ainsmag.co.uk/eu236/4383eu1a.htm
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