Packaging: Case printing delivers tasty results
Original Philadelphia Cheesesteak Co. saves on ink and labor by consolidating functions.
By Sara Pearson Specter, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/1/2009
The Original Philadelphia Cheesesteak Co., a niche manufacturer of Philly-style sandwich steak product, used to use a two-step process to code corrugated containers to ship its products. First, printing date and lot codes directly on the box with a dot-matrix ink jet printer, then using a print-and-apply labeler to place a UPC bar code on the corner of the box.
The company consolidated those functions by switching to four large-character continuous ink jet printers (Videojet, 800-843-3610, www.videojet.com) in 2007. The change yielded tasty results, dramatically cutting coding-related downtime and eliminating the cost of labels. Further, the printers' self-maintenance system continuously keeps printheads free of dust and debris for consistently clear codes, which the previous two-step process could not produce.
“Crisp, clear codes are important to both our company and our distributors for tracking and tracing, warehousing and inventory, reordering, billing and order fulfillment,” says Jim Trivelis, president of Original Philadelphia Cheesesteak Co. “Clear codes set the tone for the entire supply chain process.”
Orders are prepared and shipped from two processing facilities in Philadelphia: a 40,000-square-foot facility that manufactures fully cooked product and an 80,000-square-foot counterpart for raw processing. According to Trivelis, the company's old dot-matrix ink jet printers tended to print codes that would blur or bleed, and the print-and-apply labelers experienced extensive downtime, which required workers to hand-apply labels.
Upon implementing the new printers the company saw results immediately. The printers provided consistently clear variable data such as date, lot code, product code and UPC bar code on up to 30 boxes per minute, translating to 12,000 boxes per eight-hour shift and 60,000 boxes per week.
“The print-and-apply labelers and dot-matrix printers just couldn't keep up with those speed requirements,” Trivelis says. “The print-and-apply labelers required time for setup and would take several minutes to execute a code change.”
With nearly 200 product SKUs, Trivelis says it's possible for a line operator to change codes up to 10 times per day. A laptop computer maintains the database of the company's product SKUs, all of which have been loaded onto the four printers. When a new SKU is added, it is created on the laptop and then transferred with a USB memory drive to the printers. From there, choosing the desired code takes less than a minute.
Further, the printers' self-cleaning and maintenance system eliminates wasted ink and downtime because line operators don't have to stop a line to prime, purge and clean the printhead. Low-ink warnings allow operators to add new ink without stopping production. Trivelis expects the new printers to pay for themselves in about one year, due to savings on ink, labels and labor.
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