Improved coding efficiency from integrated coding

Leading chilled dairy foods company, Dairy Crest, has dramatically improved the efficiency of its coding and labelling processes and made major cost savings by installing an integrated solution from MARKEM’s Systems Integration team. Dairy Crest installed MARKEM’s Cimjet and Cimpak label printer-applicators and Inkjet 5000 printers on its cheddar production line in Davidstow, increasing reliability and accuracy across the whole system from primary coding to pallet labelling.

MARKEM’s tailored coding control solutions, including networking software, have enabled the plant to integrate the new equipment with its existing printers, coders, labellers and checkweighers allowing on-line data capture.

The new system is integrated with the company database and internal shipping system allowing the plant complete visibility of its production process.

The Davidstow creamery produces and packs over 100 tonnes of cheddar every day, and in the case of extra mature cheddar, stores it for up to 20 months, so accurate coding and labelling is vital for product identification and traceability.

It is essential that the coding process is reliable and the production line is kept running at all times. If production is held up, even for a few minutes, product quality can be affected.

When the company built its new factory in Davidstow it sought a coding and labelling system which would dramatically improve the traceability and accuracy of the whole process and provide reliable collation of cheese production data.

Dairy Crest Project Engineer, Neil Flood, comments: “With an increased throughput on the cheese production line the need for a state of the art, reliable weighing and labelling system was paramount.

“By integrating our coding and labelling systems with MARKEM’s software we can now track information at any time during the process, such as which pallet a block of cheese belongs to or how heavy it is. We can also trace back any pallet or block over 18 months to the day and time it was produced.

“The technology has also allowed our process systems to be linked together for data transfer and monitoring.”

To improve the accuracy of the weighing process, MARKEM networked a highly accurate checkweigher into the Dairy Crest system, and incorporated high quality scales and scanners. The precise weight of the cheese is now sent via computer to the coder and automatically printed onto the label in barcode format.

Neil Flood comments: “Previously there were discrepancies with the weight of the cheese, and the weight had to be rounded down to ensure customers were given their full quota of cheese per pallet. This could become expensive.

“The new system provides far more reliable and precise weights for both the 20Kg blocks and 1 tonne pallets, which has resulted in savings on a daily basis.” In the first stage of the process at Davidstow a Cimjet prints and applies a label onto the shrink-wrapped cheese. A scanner verifies that the label has been applied with the correct content and that the barcode is readable. If there is an error a second Cimjet will automatically retry the print without stopping the line.

The cheese is then cased and passed through a 5000 series hot melt ink jet printer where it is jetted with a 100% scannable bar code. In the final part of the process a scanner identifies the number and weight of the cheese and collates a pallet in conjunction with a robot palletiser. Once a full pallet has been formed, a pallet label is automatically printed by the Cimpak. As a fail-safe measure a desktop printer is also linked into the system so that a label can be printed manually if required.