Ireland-based food company Glanbia has implemented a print and apply solution from Zetes, which enables the company to meet the new customer requirement for full product traceability and highest possibility quality standards.
Currently, all butter producers in Ireland are required to assign a unique label - which combines information such as the manufacturer, weight, lot number, pallet number and best before date, to every every pallet of butter produced.
According to Glanbia, Zetes was a natural choice of supplier as it offers effective printing and labeling solutions, including advanced serialised labeling solutions for the pharmaceutical sector to prevent counterfeiting.
The solution, which works in conjunction with their existing pallet wrapping system, was installed at the end of each Glanbia's butter production line.
Pre-loaded pallets of butter are placed onto a wrapping turntable ready for shrink-wrapping and once the correct pallet is automatically identified, a traceability label is affixed after this stage.
The print and label solution developed by Zetes employs wireless technology and MCLNet as its communication and dispatching program, which controls the Motorola wireless handheld scanner, Datamax A Class printer hardware and a Zetes dedicated print and apply applicator unit.
Using the MCL programming language, the industrial printer is able to gather information from a variety of different databases and combine the results to develop a unique number for each pallet, without the need for additional PCs.
According to Glanbia, without the print and apply solution from Zetes, extra staff would be required to manually produce labels and apply them to the finished pallets.
Glanbia butter store manager Gerry Warren said the solution is completely automated and the only involvement is to replace label rolls when they run out.
"It has eliminated the need for additional staff to manually produce labels and there has been no impact to the volumes of finished goods we can dispatch each day," Warren added.
