Automated materials handling: Talking print and apply with Logopak

Over the years, Modern has traveled far and wide for stories, making trips across the US and Europe to report on developments in the materials handling industry. Yesterday, I found a story in my own back yard.

My backyard is in Keene, New Hampshire. As the headquarters for Markem Corporation before it became part of Markem-Imaje, Keene has a proud heritage in the print and apply industry. If you’re not familiar with the technology, print and apply refers to automated systems to print and apply bar code labels and RFID tags to items, packages, cartons and pallets in industrial settings.

What I didn’t know is that Keene is also home to Logopak Corporation, the U.S. arm of Logopak Systems, Europe’s leading manufacturer of real-time labeling systems designed for industrial use.

Truth is, I’d never heard of Logopak before meeting with William “Wink” Faulkner, Logopak’s president (Full disclosure: Our kids graduated from high school together last June). So, I was a little surprised to learn I’ve written about Logopak installations without knowing it. Logopak provided the print and apply system to the Kroger facilities we featured in the May issue. At Kroger, the print and apply system can vary the position of the applicator according to the height of the pallet. It goes low to apply a label to a pallet with only one or two layers of product and raises up for a full height pallet.

Logopak also provided the solution that applies RFID tags to books for Centraal Boekenhuis, a 3PL to the Dutch book industry I wrote about a few years ago.

No one told me who provided the print and apply system, which didn’t come as a surprise to Faulkner. “We sold our first system in the US back in 1991,” he told me. “But we’ve almost always come into a project through a systems integrator like Witron, which did the Kroger project, or Schaefer Systems International.” (Schaefer is the number one systems supplier based on 2008 revenue on Modern’s Top 20 list).    

The result: Logopak is anything but a household name here in the U.S., even in industrial automation circles. Heck, even though their office is less than a mile from my house, it was tucked away in a hard to find corner of an old brick factory that’s been renovated into office and manufacturing space for start up companies.

But from that office in Keene, Logopak aims to carve out a niche in the market for premium industrial automated print and apply labeling systems. Faulkner is in the process of setting up a network of distributors with experience in the labeling, marking and case coding equipment. Still, Logopak expects to be very active in the sell and to provide its integration expertise.

The company plans to focus first on the U.S. food and beverage industry. “That is a sweet spot for us since we’re in 60% of the breweries in Germany,” Faulkner says. Its other sweet spot is complex, highly-automated systems that require the ability to handle a lot of input and output, like Kroger. “We have the experience to integrate into a lot of automation and we can be as smart as you need us to be,” Faulkner says. 

Now that I know they’re in my back yard, and have had a chance to see some of the innovative solutions they’ve engineered to solve print and apply problems, I’m going to keep an eye on them. You can see some interesting video of the kinds of custom solutions Logopak has designed on its website. Check them out.