Soft solution

As one of the leading branded soft drinks businesses in the UK, Britvic Soft Drinks was looking to replace its existing rage of code printers to help it meet increasing production demands.

With brands such as Robinsons, J20, 7UP and Tango, the company wanted to update its coding machines with a particular focus on improving print quality, print speed and machine reliability.

Britvic runs a 24-hours-a-day operation, coding on metal cans at very high speeds of approximately 90,000 codes per hour.

This meant the company required the best coding equipment in the industry to replace their existing fleet of printers and ensure the highest print quality for traceability codes.

“All our printers are Videojet. We have been using the Excel 170i UHS (Ultra High Speed) since 1996,” says Paul Ash, Maintenance Technician at Britvic Rugby.

However the age and number of prints had begun to show on the older coders so he began looking into the next generation of machine.

“Our current machines require a continuous ink and makeup change with cleaning every 10 hours, with a cycle time of approximately nine minutes per machine,” he says.

“While the running is OK, there is also a four minute shut down and restart. Not only that but operators that clean the machines aren’t always gentle, which can cause issues with restarting jets.”

Ash says he had always been impressed with the product quality and high levels of customer service received from Videojet.

He says once he was presented with the operational benefits of the new 1620 (UHS) Continuous Ink Jet printer, he was keen to put the machine through its paces.

The company agreed to run the new Videojet 1620 UHS coding machine under trial conditions as part of Videojet’s Global R&D programme.

Videojet worked closely with the Britvic site in Rugby for three months to put their new 1620 UHS printer through a challenging production trial.

The Rugby site cans Pepsi-Cola products as the company has an exclusive agreement in the UK with PepsiCo to make and distribute their global brands.

During the trial, the 1620 UHS printer coded in excess of 23 million codes at the soft drinks site, and the printhead did not need cleaning during that period, says Ash.

It achieves this by reducing the ink build-up that can cause traditional ink jet printers to shut down.

For legal requirements and traceability purposes, Britvic codes two lines of text with the following information: a best before date, Julian date, lot number, line number and site number.

One of the advantages of the new Videojet 1620 UHS is that it is over 40% faster than its predecessor, which gives operators greater flexibility to run faster or print more content.

Britvic says it chose to take advantage of both, increasing the line speed by 25% to 150m/ min and increasing the size of the print character from 7x4 to 7x5 – all without compromising print quality.

“I cannot fault the customer service and after sales support we receive from Videojet,” says Ash.

Britvic has also noticed a number of additional advantages since trialling the 1620 UHS printer.

For example, daily maintenance has been reduced with far fewer line stops due to poor print quality, and the period between cleaning intervals has increased.

“We now choose to clean the printhead once a week at a convenient time when there is no pressure from the line being down. Due to high print makeup and ink volumes, ink lasts three to four days, maybe more. There is no mess. No problems,” says Ash.

The Videojet 1620 UHS includes the Smart Cartridge fluid system.

By reading the embedded microchip, the printer identifies whether the correct fluid has been installed.

This prevents errors in ink type or swapping makeup and ink fluids.

The integrated core also consolidates the printer’s key ink system components into one part, enabling the 1620 UHS to perform up to 14,000 hours between planned maintenance, or approximately 19 months for around-the-clock operations.

“When changing cartridges there is no mess and the display indicates when replacements are needed. This enables us to monitor levels so there are no excuses for staff not to change fluids and makeup at the right time,” says Ash.