Productive down to the last drop...

How is it possible to design DOD printing machines that address the new flexibility and productivity needs of the pharmaceutical industry with no compromise on repeatability? Special-purpose machine manufacturer Neyret Group has met this challenge by combining the advantages of inkjet printing with the high precision and flexibility of the B&R SuperTrak system.

Increasing competition, changing regulatory requirements and higher demand fluctuations are pushing pharmaceutical manufacturers to boost their productivity and product quality. To meet their expectations, Neyret Group has developed a new type of direct-to-object machine based on inkjet printing. This approach was not obvious because pad printing, which ensures very precise image transfers onto three-dimensional surfaces, is the process of choice for direct-to-object machines in the pharmaceutical industry. But this process has a major drawback for machine productivity: the pads need to be changed quite often, thereby causing frequent machine downtimes. By contrast, inkjet printing enables printing of digital-based images directly to the object surface, eliminating these productivity losses.

The machine manufacturer needed to meet the high cleanliness and repeatability requirements of the pharmaceutical industry as well. This is where the SuperTrak system, implemented as a core element of the machine, came into play. By design, the SuperTrak is perfectly suited for all production environments, including clean rooms. In addition: “The shuttles can be applied a correction movement in real time at the slightest position deviation and achieve a position repeatability of +/- 10 µm," says Bruno Neyret, the CEO of Neyret Group. "Each object is therefore printed with the required precision and repeatability in any circumstances.”

Using a smart conveyor as a core machine element opens up additional advantages to the machine: “The speed, position and acceleration can be programmed individually for each object along the track, which allows short and long processes to be mixed along the same conveyor,” highlights Neyret. The SuperTrak also provides additional flexibility for line integration or the implementation of machine options. “Thanks to the SuperTrak, our machine can convert a random product infeed into a uniform product outfeed. Moreover, additional stations dedicated to printing quality checks or assembly operations can be easily added along the track at any time,” explains Neyret.

What's more, a unique identification number is assigned to each shuttle, so that any of them are recognized automatically when returning to the track. Combining this with drop-on-demand inkjet printing reduces downtime to unprecedented levels while increasing throughput: “Productivity is now 5% to 10% higher with good-quality printing, and downtime for maintenance or batch changes can be divided by 4,” emphasizes Neyret. Moreover, the process of DOD printing saves ink and removes the cost of clichés and pads.

The machine also offers further flexibility for printing model changes. Thanks to the digital-based printing process and the SuperTrak shuttles, everything can be digitally controlled: the operator simply needs to configure the printing units’ interface and select the marking. The changing of the printing model then takes place immediately.