Inkjet & Digital Printing
Dominos Reliable and Efficiency-Enhancing C-Series Outer Case Coders Ensure That Bels Laughing Cow Keeps Smiling
Wednesday 28. October 2009 - C6000+ Critical to Production at Leading Worldwide Cheese Maker
Thanks to a growing partnership with Domino, Bel – the worlds leading producer of cheese portions and Europes foremost maker of processed cheese – is able to uphold manufacturing efficiencies and ensure complete reliability of its outer case coding and marking requirements across its French production sites. As the company behind such leading brands as Laughing Cow, Kiri, Babybel, Boursin and Leerdammer, Bels products are familiar in over 120 countries across the globe, and 10 million portions of its La vache qui rit cheese alone, are consumed everyday.
With a long established cheese making heritage, Bel has always been at the forefront of technological innovation when it comes to exploring new techniques and developing new products. Not surprising therefore, that it should enjoy such a successful relationship with leading total coding, marking, printing and traceability solutions provider, Domino, whose own success has been built on much the same ethos.
The foundations of this relationship lie within Bels domestic market of France, where for the last three years, the company has used Dominos robust and reliable C-Series plus outer case coders across its six French manufacturing sites. Indeed, Bels utilisation of Dominos high-speed, high-quality coding and marking solutions to effectively apply real-time variable data, is perhaps best exemplified at its site in Lons-le-Saunier (39 / Jura). As one of the larger of the companys 26 manufacturing sites worldwide, Dominos C-Series plus coders print high quality, 300dpi alphanumeric codes and graphics directly onto secondary packaging across several lines.
Between them, these lines are engaged in the packaging of Bels Laughing Cow, Apéricube and Pic & Croc products and each now features a Domino C6000+ outer case coder to apply essential date, batch, hour, minute, and line number information. In addition, the installation of a Domino M-Series Print and Apply labeller serves Bels pallet labelling requirements and is used predominantly to apply ad hoc end-of-line stickers for promotions and money-off offers.
As Philippe Richy, Purchasing Manager at Bel, explains, the efficiency-enhancing Domino C-Series plus enables the company to use innovative direct scan-to-print technology for 100% error-free coding that upholds supply chain integrity and guarantees traceability compliance.
“Each of our Domino C6000+ coders is linked directly via an Ethernet cable to a handheld scanner, which reads barcode information from a hard-copy production order,” says M Richy. “This eliminates the need for an operator to manually type in the required data, which inevitably led to the occasional error in the past. The operator simply needs to enter the pallet number and scan the barcode, and the C6000+ does the rest.”
For the production manager, this failsafe scan-to-print configuration, together with the robustness and reliability of Dominos C-Series plus coders, has made a significant difference to the workflow efficiency of Bels manufacturing operations in Lons. “Basically, we avoid the need for a PC and controller linked to the production line, and instead utilise a faster system that is both extremely user-friendly and trustworthy,” he adds. “At the same time, we no longer have to worry about downtime due to coding issues, thanks to the high dependability of the C6000+ coders.”
Based on its positive experience with the C- and M-Series, Bel is currently at the advanced stage of trialling Dominos A300+ continuous ink jet printers to fulfill its requirements for small character printing of primary packaging; and is also testing Dominos high performance S-Series plus lasers.