Premium sauce manufacturer marks cardboard boxes with large character printers

Jürgen Langbein GmbH, a manufacturer of gourmet sauces, has equipped its packaging lines with large character coders from Diagraph.

Direct printing replaces labeler

In 2018, the Jürgen Langbein company decided to streamline the labeling of their cardboard boxes and implement direct printing. The company has been labeling their bottles and jars with MHD with printers from Allen Coding for quite some time. Since it was very satisfied with the service and devices provided by Allen Coding, the new printing systems were also purchased from the labeling specialist.

Direct printing is very economical compared to labeling

In an initial test installation on a packaging line, a Diagraph IJ4000 large character coder was installed, which to this day provides up to 10,000 cartons a day with a high-resolution print image.

At the same time, the printer is extremely economical, because almost 340,000 prints are made with just one bottle of ink. Bernd Deukert, Production Manager at Jürgen Langbein, explains: “Compared to labeling, there is also no need to stock labels. Additionally, label rejects and the high wear of printheads result in high costs when using labelers.”

Print data comes directly from the ERP system

The more than 200 different print images for the cartons are all stored in the enterprise resource planning system (ERP) and are sent directly to the printer. Since different products are packaged on the line every day, this constitutes a huge time saving. Line downtime when changing label rolls manually is also a thing of the past.

About the Diagraph IJ4000 large character printer

The Diagraph IJ4000 creates print images up to 100 mm high. Up to 4 printheads with different print images can be controlled with one control unit. The ink can be refilled centrally at the control unit during operation. A network connection is easily possible to avoid operating errors.

Large character printing – a seminal technology

Following the successful integration at the Kaltenkirchen plant, the packaging line of the sister company Menzi in Versmold was also equipped with a Diagraph IJ4000. Additionally, another production line at the Kaltenkirchen plant has also been equipped with large character coding technology and has been performing without a hitch.

Mr. Schäfer, the Division Manager for Labeling, describes his experience with direct printing systems: “We are a premium company among soup producers, quality is our first priority. We’ve always been impressed by the quality of service at Allen Coding and the new labeling systems are also exactly to my taste.”