OVERVIEW
SPR Packaging, LLC is an American supplier of packaging solutions – including printed films and converted poly bags. Based in Rockwell, Texas, it was founded in 2006 by a team of experienced flexible packaging managers and associates in order to fill a niche in the market for customer oriented manufacturing and service. SPR Packaging is part of the Armando Alvarez Group and is a world leader in the extrusion and conversion of a wide array of plastic products and packaging. SPR Packaging provides superior customer service and cost-effective quality through:
- proprietary film formulations designed for high performance packaging equipment;
- consistent quality that saves operators adjustment time on the production floor;
- fast, dependable order turnarounds and communication;
- warehousing and production forecasting.
THE CHALLENGE
SPR Packaging was searching for an automated pallet labeling solution to meet their immediate and future needs.
They wanted to equip their lines with automatic printer applicators, however they also needed a truly automated labeling solution which would interface to their accounting software and Datalogic specialists first showed the Matrix 410N and ease of set up. The unit was set to read a 2D code on pallets as presented at the stretch wrapper. After the successful installation they used the Matrix 120 unit to read applied labels at the wrapped pallet label applicator. When the pallet is inserted into the wrapper it could have 1 pallet, or 2 pallets on each physical pallet load. The operator triggers if the load is a single or double stack pallet. Using two Matrix 410N the system reads the barcodes and creates a queue record to track the pallet. If either barcode no reads at the infeed the pallet is flagged as such. It doesn’t wrap or get labeled so the lift operator may inspect the pallet for a proper production label and retry. If the barcodes are read the system writes the wrapper recipe to the PLC and queues the pallet.automatic wrapper. They have selected a sytems integrator with 15+ year of experience in advanced printing and tracking solutions to provide a complete traceability system.
THE SOLUTION
If there is a second stack the system will print and apply two labels to the top stack. Pallet labels include customer/order specific data and formats, a unique serial number, and the pallet weight (divided by film impressions for double stacks). After the pallet is verified the data is exported to finalize inventory.
After the pallet wraps it stops at an inline scale and the system reads the weight from the PLC, triggering the first printer applicator. The first label is applied to the lower/single stack, then the system signals the PLC to proceed. As the second label applies a Datalogic Matrix 120 barcode reader verifies the pallet label. If there is a no read the label automatically prints to a manual printer so the lift operator may confirm that a scannable barcode label is facing the warehouse floor.
Pallet labels include customer/order specific data and formats, a unique serial number, and the pallet weight (divided by film impressions for double stacks). After the pallet is verified the data is exported to finalize inventory.
THE RESULTS
If either printer applicator faults the system will automatically print to the manual printer until the issue is resolved, then it will print to the printer applicator. Reporting shows pallets in queue, palletizing reports by date and product, weight reports, transaction reports and device health reports.
The end user SPR was very pleased with the results. The system integrator, that has been providing competitive bar code readers for over 17 years, after having experienced success with SPR Packaging has already begun implementing Datalogic barcode readers into the scanning applications offered to their customers.Paul Sikorsi stated, “I have never had such an easy start up. The barcode readers just worked right out of the box and started reading”. He was also very pleased with the timely support received during set of the Ethernet protocols.
The ROI on this system is anticipated to be less than 12 months due to more accurate weights on pallets for shipping audits, inventory accuracy, faster throughput, less manual labor and valuable accounting and accountability.
