Factory Focus: Track & Trace Program Enlists Coding Station Approach

Program is specifically designed for conveyor-based OEM packers up to speeds of 500ppm.

From Staff Reports

The requirements for coding or printing directly onto cigarette packs has steadily increased over the past two decades. These increasingly complex requirements demand unique pack identification (or serialization) mean manufacturers need a solution that tackles the biggest coding challenge – handling of the packs.

The Domino Coding Station is an affordable and compact solution for any cigarette manufacturer wishing to print serialized codes onto cigarette packs. A total of 18 have now been supplied to date, with all the ‘Big Four’ MNC’s being a customer. The Domino Coding Station is specifically designed for conveyor-based OEM packers up to speeds of 500ppm. It can handle either soft or hard pack formats.

Soft packs are particularly challenging to code due to the limitations of the OEM packer design (these packers were designed many years ago, well before these coding requirements were identified).

The Coding Station is a bespoke ‘module’ allowing customers to take complete control of the pack coding process, in particular product handling, which is how the pack is presented for printing. It is the single biggest challenge when one is printing machine-readable codes, which is mandatory for any Track & Trace requirements. Handling the pack is the most critical part of the coding process— poor handling or product presentation will invariably lead to poor print quality.

Quality Endangered If a product is not presented correctly for printing, the quality of the critical Machine-Readable Code (MRC) such as DataMatrix or DotCode, will be immediately impacted. MRC’s are particularly sensitive to handling issues due to the high degree of printing accuracy required.

If packs are rejected at the point of coding for unacceptable print quality, or worse, if pack codes cannot be successfully read by automated vision when they are being aggregated further down the production lines, it will reduce production line efficiency. In summary, poor handling = poor code quality = reduced OEE.

The Coding Station removes any risk associated with product handling, it ensures packs are correctly printed to the highest possible quality, it automatically checks codes for quality, it can reject packs, and it is far less intrusive than the traditional approach to ‘bolting’ equipment onto existing production lines.

In acceptance testing on customer production lines, Domino has recorded OEE figures of 99.999 percent, proving that a pack coding solution can have almost zero impact on an existing production line efficiency.

The key elements of the Domino

Coding Station are:

• Coding Station handling unit

• Twin Domino D-Series i-Tech lasers

• Domino Vision Control System (either Cognex or Omron)

The Domino Coding Station minimizes the impact of integration on the existing production equipment. The approach Domino has taken with the Coding Station is identical to that seen in the pharmaceutical industry: A dedicated ‘module’ for coding, vision and reject that is literally a ‘drop-in’ to existing conveyor lines is the ultimate solution as it minimizes the impact on the rest of the production line.

Tobacco differs as it is much faster (up to three or four times faster) and therefore adoption of laser technology for pack identification is now almost 100 percent. In pharmaceutical, Domino sees much more use of thermal ink-jet technology instead of laser, largely because of the differences in the application.

As the maximum operating speed of the Domino Coding Station is 500ppm, the system is ideal for OEM packer model types such as GD X1, X500, X2, X3 or X3W.

Serialization Grows When Domino began supplying the Tobacco industry with coding technology, there was no requirement for serialization. It was simply batch or price information. In the past decade the requirement for serialization has continued to grow, it is now the majority of projects Domino deals with in the Tobacco industry.

To enable Domino to offer the best solution for customers, specific new options were added to the Domino portfolio including integration parts, industrial vision and handling solutions. With approximately a 90 percent market share for cigarette pack identification applications globally, Domino products are perceived by their customers as being cost efficient, easy to install and operate and offering the highest levels of quality and reliability.

If packs are rejected at the point of coding for unacceptable print quality, or worse, if pack codes cannot be successfully read by automated vision when they are being aggregated further down the production lines, it will reduce production line efficiency. Poor handling = poor code quality = reduced OEE.

There is increasing legislation that requires unique product identification of tobacco products. The largest of these projects is for the EU (Tobacco Products Directive or TPD2), but legislation requiring unique product identification (or Track & Trace) is being or has been implemented in markets such as Burkina Faso, Mexico, UAE, Russia, and most recently Saudi Arabia (KSA).

With the ratification of the Anti-Illicit Trade protocol under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Track and Trace will rapidly become the global norm in tobacco. T&T legislation won’t stop at tobacco. It will be seen in alcohol, luxury goods and bottled water. In fact, any product. This legislation is largely driven by governments not only wanting to implement an anti-illicit trade policy, but also as a way to collect taxes on those products.

Domino can also offer services to remove, supply and install new conveyor systems should they be required to facilitate a Domino Coding Station installation. The system is generally installed on the outfeed conveyor of the existing packer but can be installed on the infeed to the existing pack over wrap unit as well.

Domino supplies coding equipment to any manufacturer who needs to identify its products with best before, sell by dates, batch codes and increasingly unique identification. Domino supplies a range of technologies including continuous ink-jet, Laser, print and apply labeling, thermal ink-jet and thermal transfer over-print.

Domino was founded in 1978 in Cambridge, UK, and has been part of the Japanese Brother Group since 2015.

With a dedicated Global support team solely focused on Tobacco operations, and a global network of over 120 distributors and subsidiaries, Domino supports tobacco customers in well over 50 countries.

[TI]With the ratification of the Anti-Illicit Trade protocol under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Track and Trace will rapidly become the global norm in tobacco. [TI]