According to managing director Visy Technology Systems, Steve Jowett, the bar has been rising in terms of the image quality expected by manufacturer end users and their customers.
“As a result, higher resolution marking is replacing the older coarse dot matrix style printing,” he says.
“The supply chain also has an expectation that primary product and secondary carton codes for example, will feature clearly legible date, batch and product contents information."
"There is a further expectation the printed data will be accurate especially where expiration dates are concerned. The data printed must also precisely match the product contents.”
The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) participates in an on-going industry process to standardise information exchange between suppliers and manufacturers to make sure that manufacturers know exactly what ingredients are in their products.
Deputy chief executive officer Dr Geoffrey Annison says many larger manufacturers have sophisticated databases of ingredients linked up with automatic mechanisms for calculating information about ingredients that will be transferred to a label.
“While industry has constructed very good mechanisms for managing information about their products, the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) Code also clearly states specific requirements for nutrient information,” Dr Annison says.
“The code provides for percentage labelling for ingredients and allergen statements, so there’s very little ambiguity about these requirements.”
Dr Annison admits the process becomes more difficult when claims such as ‘low fat’ or ‘gluten free’ are highlighted on product packaging.
“Some of these claims are directly regulated in the Food Standards Code” he says, “but others are more loosely provided for through industry codes of practice.”
Compliance has become more of an issue recently as FSANZ is considering a new regulatory regime for nutrition, health and regulated claims.”
“There’s been some variation around the jurisdictions in the enforcement of such label claims which has caused some confusion in the marketplace,” Dr Annison says.
“In addition, the Trade Practice Act requires that a reasonable consumer shouldn’t be misled by either written or graphical representations of food ingredients on product packs."
"So, that’s a little bit harder for companies to come to grips with in terms of how they might present their product overall to consumers.”
Dr Annison says his organisation is hopeful complexities in the legislation can be ironed out over the next few years, but meanwhile compliance issues remain a significant burden for manufacturers.
The AFGC believes that the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission Review into food regulation, released at the beginning of the year, and the Victorian government’s subsequent response, foreshadows an overall review of food labelling.
“We support the development of policy mandating the placement of particular information on food packages and the basis for any prohibitions to being made available to consumers."
"We consider it important to establish some basic principles to allow labelling to more effectively meet the needs of consumers and to provide guidelines for compliance.”
The ability to trace products through the supply chain is also central to ensuring product and brand integrity.
“Counterfeiting is becoming increasingly prevalent due to advances in technology and is putting the lives of the consumer at risk if genuine pharmaceutical products are not identifiable,” says Markem-Imaje national sales and marketing manager, Greig Francis.
“To combat this issue, Markem-Imaje utilises the Datamatrix bi-dimensional barcode."
"This method of coding allows the identification of the product by lot or by the unit and guarantees both effective internal and external tracking.”
“This is just one of several applications that are being refined at present,” Francis says.
“We are proud to be Strategic Alliance partners with GS1 Australia, ensuring that we are at the forefront of traceability technology and assisting companies to work towards the common goal of international traceability.”
As Australian production lines become increasingly automated, manufacturers must find ways to improve the volume and quality of their output while controlling costs.
The demand for smarter, more integrated line devices is at a premium.
Matthews Intelligent Identification national sales and marketing manager, Phil Biggs says while compliance can be a headache for processors and manufacturers, a greater challenge is to offer “more than mere compliance”
“There’s still a common element of ‘slap and ship’, pop on a code or label to get your goods into the customer’s’ door,” Biggs says.
”But that’s just a cost without benefit. Gaining business intelligence, say, along with compliance, is not a big hurdle. The key is integration; turnkey solutions with ERP integration.”
“This is an area in which Matthews excels, particularly through our Identification Systems (IDS) group, led by Mark Dingley."
"Sometimes, companies just need a new, stand-alone coder or labeller. Easily done, once the right technology has been determined for the end use."
"However, IDS is all about complete integration, for when companies need more than a single, self-contained unit.”
IDS networks coding and labelling equipment so devices talk to each other and the rest of a business’s systems.
“IDS specialises in turnkey engineering design and installation, starting with reviewing the whole-of-business needs, not just coding needs,” Biggs explains.
Expectations around compliance mean that users of coding and marking systems must implement processes to control and manage data quality and integrity.
This includes the use of vision inspection and printer data management systems that integrate and operate with plant automation infrastructure.”
Visy Technology Systems addresses this key challenge by offering high resolution printers with capability to connect to customer plant automation controls.
“We also offer our own ID-LINK multi device control system to synchronizes multiple print devices with automation systems and local data management interfaces,” says Steve Jowett.
“This reduces the risk of human error when using multiple coding and labelling machines on individual production lines.”
APS Australia vice president Andrew Sharp believes thermal ink jet printers offer the greatest potential to provide a single technology able to address the fundamental needs of primary, secondary and tertiary packaging.
“These are scalable, future proof and by nature of the disposable print engine, maintenance free,” he says.
“The one-size-fits-all technology potentially allows a manufacturer to use the same hardware to control marking and coding applications throughout the factory.”
But what are customers looking for?
Steve Jowett says customers want solutions that comply with their print specifications while performing comfortably with the demands of a production environment.
“Up time is paramount and marking machinery must offer a high level of reliability while always delivering code quality and integrity,” he says.
“Production environments can be harsh with the presence of running water, high humidity, temperature extremes and production dusts challenging the reliability of line components."
"Customers require solutions that are designed for these conditions.”
Markem Imaje’s Greig Francis points to coding and labelling solutions that run with minimal human interaction and training, while still delivering a high standard of performance.
“We’ve found that the most common key factors influencing a manufacturer’s buying decision are: simplicity of operation, robustness and reliability to ensure maximum uptime,” he says.
“These attributes are a cornerstone in the design of various Markem-Imaje identification technology solutions."
"We also combine these revolutionary technologies with a user friendly interface to optimise usability.”
“Manufacturers have also come to realise that they need to consider the total cost of ownership as opposed to the initial upfront cost, as with today’s rapidly developing software and increasing demands on manufacturers themselves, the purchased product must be able to evolve.”
“Another more noticeable trend emerging is that companies in general are becoming increasingly more environmentally aware, and as such more manufacturers are seeking environmentally-friendly consumables.”
In terms of future technology Steve Jowett says developments in ink technology seem to be outpacing advances in hardware.
“In the past many application ideas were restricted by the narrow capabilities of the inks available,” he says.
“We’re now seeing nano technology playing a role in the development of inks which contain active components. Advanced fluid products open up new opportunities in commercial and package printing and in many cases are waiting for the development of the application systems and coders to fully realise their potential.”
"I would expect the future to feature an increased use of RFID labelling in FMCG,” Jowett adds.
“Human readable data will still need to accompany RFID as a trusted fallback so marking systems such as Labelling, Ink Jet and Laser coders will remain active."
"Developments in both technologies will see lower hardware costs, higher consumable yields and greater reliability."
"Printers will be more modular and feature live redundancy, hot swap or disposable components to reduce downtime.”
Maintaining as clean a manufacturing/production environment as possible is especially important for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets.
APJ Industrial OEM sales manager, for HP’s Speciality Printing Systems Gavin Zau says technology of the future will be clean, able to print more data at high resolution within a small print swath, easy to use and low cost.
Coding, labelling and marking technologies will continue to evolve; yet according to the vendors, the mainstay of future developments will still be service.
“It’s essential that solutions be supported by the supplier with a servicing program to ensure marking machine performance does not impact negatively on production line performance,” Steve Jowett says.
“Customers expect us to accept accountability for the performance of the products we support and we structure our support commitment and associated programs in response to that expectation.”
“We see customers who want peace of mind,” agrees Phil Biggs of Matthews.
“They want to reduce production costs and increased productivity using our Planned Maintenance Programs (PMPs), which even include a discount on parts."
"Service also extends to our Consumable Support Plans, which protect customers’ coding and labelling investments.”
“It’s terrific to have the latest equipment and software developments, but service must, must back that up.”
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