Laser Coder

Challenge 

Arla Foods, the Danish dairy multi-national, was rolling out an innovative packing process that required a best-before date to be laser coded onto cheese cartons contained within a cardboard outer. Their chilled cartons had been shipped without a best before date due to the nuances of blue cheeses in transit.  

The credentials of RML in the dairy space made us a great fit for Arla. 

We were to ensure that the automated solution was flexible enough to handle 4 different SKU sizes with both automatic and manual size changes available. As this machine wasn’t to be in a standard factory automation environment, operators were to be able to easily read bar code information which determined the size – see the red/yellow/green/blue size-change tools in picture one.  

A huge Health and Safety challenge to overcome was that the smoke created by the laser process is carcinogenic.  

Solution 

We mounted the Laser Coder onto a servo adjusted ball screw for maximum positional accuracy. The colour coded size change tools ensured that the machine was set-up right ‘first time all the time’ for minimal product wastage. 

To deal with the dangerous smoke we specified a HEPA Air Filtration system. 

A simple solution, but one where ‘the devil is in the detail’ and that’s just where our engineers love to operate.