Fruit packaging weighing and coding

The first line director system was installed by Brewster Heights, a cherry and apple packer. The target market is fruit packaging. This solution integrates scanning, on-line weighing, and outer packaging coding. Through database software, it can quickly and accurately produce a variety of products.

For fruit packaging, the key is speed. Today's ripe, round cherries may rot the next day if they are not processed in time. The Brewster Heights packaging company invested in a new packaging facility last year, and the cherry and apple packaging machines drastically increased production during the cherry harvest season, the sixth half of the summer season, and plant manager Dan Pariseau said, "The cherry season The sex is very short. Each year we pack about 200,000 to 300,000 boxes, but we want to achieve a 20% growth rate by buying new equipment."

With the growth of packaging equipment, however, the new packaging machine and Brewster's original slow, manual and multi-directional line-up weighing equipment and cartons coded to create a bottleneck effect. For growth, Brewster was the first to install a new solution, Graphic Label's Line Director®, which was particularly suited to the needs of fruit packaging speeds and variable data. By partnering with Markon's inkjet coding, Graphic Label's custom software and Carlson's online weighing. So Line Director not only provides Brewster with quick weighing and coding, but also more accurate data collection, cleaner, clearer and less manual work.

Brewster, founded by the Gebbers family in 1973, started as an Apple Packaging company. Ten years ago, he began to expand his business to cherry packaging. In North Central Washington, USA, Brewster employs 250 workers (more people in the cherry packing season) and covers an area of ​​about five acres. Depending on the harvest, the company will pack 2 to 3 million boxes of fruit each year. 75% will be sent to the country through the contractor and the rest will be exported outside the United States.

Like most fruit packaging companies, Brewster's business has to be extraordinarily complex, depending on the size, color, and variety of the fruit and must be categorized and then packaged into special packaging on demand. Coupled with the customer's individual carton size and label specifications, Brewster faces 20 different cherries. Pariseau explained that the cherries are packaged in sizes ranging from 8 to 12 (12 is the smallest), one for each 0.5 file. Apples are divided into 14 different sizes, further subdivided according to their color, quantity and variety.

In Brewster, pick fresh fruit, then put it on the production line, pack it every 20lb, place it in recycled plastic containers (PRCs) or other degradable packaging, have 2 pounds of plastic packaging or 1 to 4 pounds Hard packaging, small size packaging and then packaged into a large package. Before being installed in the Line Director, it was packaged in a recycled plastic container and then weighed and weighed by the operator at a standstill. Those packages are sometimes not enough weight, sometimes overweight, and they are taken away by employees. If the weight is right, continue on the conveyor belt and use the dot matrix inkjet printer to print the relevant information.

Pariseau said that although the dot matrix coder represents the second generation technology to code fruit packaging, and its performance is better than its original use of manual imprinting, it is not the best code quality. "The inkjet system is OK, but it's not clear enough," he commented. "In this era, food safety has always been concerned, especially with fresh food. Customers can read it from outside the box. Information, which goes back to the system, area or production time."

At the end of June, Graphic Label went through a busy installation weekend and the Line Director made his first business in Brewster's cherry harvest in 2004. As the developer of Line Director, Shelley and Lyle Von Essen, respectively as Vice President and President of Graphic Label, explained that the system mainly includes three parts, namely Line Director software, Markon inkjet coder and Carlson online Heavy and conveyor belts. “The three parts fully reflect our consideration of the three characteristics of the system, namely smarter, cleaner and faster,” said Shelley Von Essen, “The software is smarter than we have seen in the past, and the inkjet system is more than the fruit industry’s The coding system is much cleaner and online weighing/transmission is much faster."

Line Director is used to manage warehouses. Many different products and packages may be packaged online at the same time. Many fruit packagers will use a commit-to-pack packaging line to sort and package at the same time. Causes most packaging and products to go offline at the same time. However, Brewster, as a large-scale production factory, the same variety, specifications and colors are packaged in the same type of packaging and are produced in large quantities. Therefore, Graphic Label Company adjusted Line Director according to Brewster's needs. The process begins with an operational type of bar coded label on a fruit-filled box. This barcode identifies the carton and has up to 16 unique digital contents, package entries, variety, grade, weight, package date, batch Wait. The boxes were then placed on a conveyor belt and weighed online. The provided speed Brewster was able to keep up with the new cherry packaging equipment. At speeds up to 61m/min, the counter quickly records the weight of the package and sends messages to the Line Director.

This information is then transmitted to the Microscan MS-820 code scanner, which uses it to detect bar code information. The Line Director software determines the acceptable range of package weight based on the bar code information. According to Pariseau, accurate packaging weight is very important for cherry packaging because the system automatically removes overweight or underweight products online after the code has been printed. For Brewster, the system not only greatly increased the cherries-weighing speed, but also did not need to manually manually detect the weight of the package as before, and then removed the non-compliant packages. At the same time, Line Director pays a license number for each bag, including all information for packaging and products, including packaging time, personnel, and product information. This data is stored in a public database and may be transferred to other programs - such as finance, logistics, or sales - for professional reporting. While Brewster does not currently use such information, it has found that the system is able to collect daily production information and eliminate the additional record tracking tasks that were previously performed manually. After the scanner reads the bar code, the Line Director will send a message to the Markon 5200 carton inkjet - the next link is the carton section - the relevant variable data will be printed on the box, which includes the variety, size, weight, The lot number and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s lot number include packaging time and grade. Pariseau pointed out that each customer may also put necessary inventory control information on the outside box as needed, such as the storage room and product identification code that the product needs to use.

Von Essens said that Marken's 5200 is a good choice for fast fruit packaging. "Marken's large-character solid ink technology is so reliable," Shelley Von Essen commented. "Although it's just a workplace, the staff is very happy. In fact, there is almost no trouble."

Pariseau said that he is very grateful for the speed of the inkjet system and that it does not have any stains. He likes the Touch Dry® technology, which is the one-touch dry ink-jet coding technology, to “colored solid ink, on-demand spraying,” and he also The clarity of the printer is exciting. "Even if it was only six points, the effect was very clear," he said. The system was able to reach 3,000 bags/hour, the Brewster cherry package was coded at 1000 bags/hour, and the apple was packaged at 800 bags/hour. Since installing Line Director on Brewster, Graphic Label has expanded its system to several types of fruit packaging, excluding apples, cherries, and pears. According to Von Essens, many successful applications can be attributed to Marken’s credit. “Although there are many functions in the software, employees do a lot of work, but the most noticeable is the print quality,” said Lyle Von Essen. “Marken has always been a very good partner, and, in cooperation with Marken, we have With new things and individually-applicable fruit packaging, we believe that its coding will be more effective and quality will be better."

For Brewster, the Marken system greatly promoted the development of cherry packaging. Pariseau commented: “All departments like this system for different reasons. For the production department, they like it because their prints are clean and fast, in addition, because now they may use less time to generate product information - it can automatically Generate.The finance staff like it because the data is more accurate, in addition, the sales staff also like it because of its better print.

Source: MARKEN