Inkjet & Digital Printing
Domino 24/7 Reliability Impresses Buckingham Foods
Tuesday 06. January 2009 - In the competitive sandwich and snack salads market retailers are constantly looking to differentiate their products through innovative packaging.
To help its customers – amongst whom are some major high street names – respond to this challenge, Milton Keynes based Buckingham Foods has recently installed six Domino V200 high quality thermal transfer printers (TTO). The investment will provide the leading sandwich manufacturer with the necessary coding flexibility to easily accommodate changes in packaging requirements.
Having experienced problems with thermal transfer printers in the past, Buckingham Foods was looking to replace its existing technology with a more reliable solution for coding onto flexible packaging. “We were experiencing frequent unplanned downtime and often needed to run additional lines in order to meet customer despatch times, which obviously led to an increase in operating costs,” explains Dave Courtney, Chief Engineer for Buckingham Foods.
The installation of the V200s was prompted by one of Buckingham Foods key customers changing from thermoformed packs to flow wrap for its range of sandwiches. “Turning to Domino was the obvious solution, as the technology it has provided us since 2004 has proved extremely reliable for coding best before dates on to different types of packaging – we already use five Domino A200 continuous ink jet printers and two S200 laser printers to code on to cardboard packs,” Dave Courtney continues. “We have been impressed by the quality of the technology, the technical knowledge of our partners at Domino and the excellent service back up. Domino is clearly the leading player in the coding market.”
Domino equipment installations at Buckingham Foods sites in Milton Keynes and Tamworth are complemented by Domino data integrity packages. These integrated solutions ensure that costly recalls are eliminated by monitoring that the correct sandwich is placed into the correct pack and that the barcodes on the packs are readable.
Used by Buckingham Foods to provide clear legible coding on to flow wrap film, the V200 is also capable of printing variable data including text, barcodes, Data Matrix codes and logos onto a wide range of flexible packaging materials and is ideal for high volume applications. It achieves a print resolution of 300dpi and can be mounted on a variety of packaging machines, including vertical or horizontal form, fill, seal machines, making it suitable for many key food applications.
“We immediately liked the clear user display and the robustness of the Domino V200,” David Courtney adds. “But the major benefit of this installation is its reliability compared to other systems we have used. We are now able to run the equipment 24/7, confident in the knowledge that we can offer our customers increased efficiency in the supply of products. In addition, with around 2,000 products in a typical print run, only having to spend seconds to reset the code format is a distinct advantage in improving overall equipment effectiveness.”
Domino supplies special ribbon for Buckingham Foods, suitable for both the harsh environment in which the printers are required to work, and for coding on to the paper laminated film used by the company. Generally, V-Series ribbons are available in a variety of grades, colours and widths and provide excellent performance for a wide range of web materials and industry applications.
The V200 also features Dominos patented Ribbon Economy feature, which allows ribbon savings of up to 60% without compromising print quality. Uptime is maximised by using the highest-capacity ribbon rolls currently available (up to 1400 metres) and through Dominos maintenance-free dancing arm technology, which prevents ribbon breakage even at the highest speeds.
Powerful printer control and on-board label creation are provided by the V-Series controller, which can be networked for remote operation and is also compatible with a variety of external label creation and networking solutions.
Dave Courtney concludes, “We are always investigating new packaging options so having coding equipment flexible enough to accommodate changes is very important to us. With Domino as our strategic partner we are confident that we can meet the future packaging challenges of our customers. “